THANKSGIVING: THE MOST PEACEFUL TIME OF YEAR

Thanksgiving is a time for family and friends, a peaceful, relaxed gathering of individuals who share a meal and their thankfulness for each other and their lives. Unless, of course, you work in retail.

Most retail workers aren’t truly able to celebrate Thanksgiving. Because many stores are now open on the holiday, they must work very late into the night and often overnight, into the infamous insanity that is Black Friday.

Illustration by Eli Rankin / the Advocate

American ideals and focuses have shifted. People no longer care about truly celebrating their thankfulness, and instead they focus on attaining what they don’t have: frivolous material goods.

Most of the time, the deals aren’t even worth it. The only Black Friday that I have ever worked was last year, and our “sales” were the discount rack of unwanted shoes that we had sitting out for weeks before the holiday.

Additionally, retailers often increase the price of the “sale” product before Black Friday, to make the price cut seem more prominent. According to the Wall Street Journal, “retailers will slightly increase the ‘normal’ price of an item in the days before their Black Friday sales so that the discounts appear deeper.” In fact, the WSJ reported an 8 percent increase in a fifth of the sale items it tracked before Black Friday, and a 23 percent uptick in the pre-sale prices of toys and tools.

Black Friday often results in companies pushing their employees as hard as they can: long shifts, doubles, insane sales goals, eight-hour gaps in between 12-hour shifts.

It seems as if this insanity will never end. America’s wants seem to only grow as time goes by. This massive, materialistic, free-for-all is an excuse for companies to get richer and for bored citizens to go out and spend more than they can afford – but, of course, they can flex with it on Instagram later, so it’s worth it, right?

Really, is waking up at 5 a.m. or skipping out on the post-meal Thanksgiving chatter worth overpriced, overhyped, “sale” items that hardly deserve to be called a sale?

Advocate Staff