Archived Christmas is coming...let's all be nice

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1. Actually, soccer is still being played, at least at the collegiate level. Yes, really. Conference championships are wrapping up this weekend, and NCAA tournament play begins later this week and will be played throughout the month into mid-December (I work in athletics for my school on the side), so it's very possible that TM has a valid excuse.

2. Believe it or not, people do have lives outside of retail/their jobs in general, and being with family is absolutely a valid excuse if there is enough available coverage to meet business needs first. Yes, working on Thanksgiving is becoming the nature of the beast of working in retail, but again, no reason to not try and accommodate those with a legitimate reason so long as there is enough coverage. Some have families out of state. Some have families across the country. Our store did their best to accommodate everyone's requests, and for the most part people are fine with what they've been scheduled. I really hope you're not an ETL-HR, because you sound like a preeeetty insensitive person.

Also, is it possible to start merging some of these threads? Sweet Jesus there are already 304508.35 of these things...
 
Dear HRat,

It is one day a year, however it was the one day a year I used to get together with my out of town grandparents. It was the only time they drove down closer (they stayed two hours away) to where I live. Plus it was a day everyone had off so we could all gather together which was nice. Anyway the first year I started to have to work on Thanksgiving I had to miss this family gathering and it was the last one due to my Grandfather's death. So it may be one day but it was a special day, and when I took this job it was a day the store was closed. It is also woth mentioning that retail worker is the most common job in the US followed up by cashier so this means more and more peopke may miss out on their families last Thanksgiving together like I did.
 
I realize that we all work in retail....with this comes working weekends, evenings ( overnights in some cases), Holidays and other special days. However, just because I work in retail doesn't mean that my family is any less important to me than someone who works a Mon-Fri job. Yes, Black Friday is one day..but so is Thanksgiving. Things like suck it butter cup just seems rude to me. Oh, and btw....this will be my 19th Black Friday working ... so this buttercup as pretty much sucked it all up.
 
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Keep it civil.


That said, on the point of having asked what peoples availability is for the week.
I can't tell you how many posts I've seen with comments about TMs being scheduled against their availability without being asked.

Working retail didn't used to be so much of a choice between you family and your job.
Yes, the hours sucked but you had major holidays off and could usually pay your bills.
It's not like that anymore.

There are a number of major retail stores who still understand that their employees are human beings who need a decent quality of life and have decided to stay closed on Thanksgiving.
I don't see why Target can't be one of them.
 
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All TMs should just refuse to show up on Thursday. What are they going to do fire everyone? Not bloody likely turn over is already a nightmare. And the PR disaster would be huge. Just forgiving every thing by saying thats retail is not valid. Retail has alway required much but, retail was never ever like it is now.
 
RedDog said:
All TMs should just refuse to show up on Thursday. What are they going to do fire everyone? Not bloody likely turn over is already a nightmare. And the PR disaster would be huge. Just forgiving every thing by saying thats retail is not valid. Retail has alway required much but, retail was never ever like it is now.
Click to expand...
I wonder what's preventing us from striking and unionizing like our predecessors in the industrial world did. Maybe a lack of organization or willpower.
 
thatcashierdude said:
RedDog said:
All TMs should just refuse to show up on Thursday. What are they going to do fire everyone? Not bloody likely turn over is already a nightmare. And the PR disaster would be huge. Just forgiving every thing by saying thats retail is not valid. Retail has alway required much but, retail was never ever like it is now.
Click to expand...
I wonder what's preventing us from striking and unionizing like our predecessors in the industrial world did. Maybe a lack of organization or willpower.
Click to expand...

Or perhaps another Valley Stream incident. Hey @Hardlinesmaster, didn't they have a 2nd vote?
 
Seasonals have no choice to show up or be termed. Reg TMs can take their chances of being written up.

Targets logic is that TMs should have no other obligations other than Target on those days. Everyone is available to work any set hours unless a prior arrangement was made.

My first day after Christmas was an opening shift on a day I was unavailable. With family 5 hours away, I asked about it and I was told everyone works that day. I was not made aware of it when I was hired but I went ahead and worked it.
 
Our store was accommodating, If you said you couldn't work on one of those days or asked not to work the overnight shift, they scheduled you correctly, yet, if team members who said they had open availability ask other tm's when they are working thanksgiving/black Friday, they seem to get their nose out of joint when the other tm tells them that they have thanksgiving off or they aren't doing a marathon shift.
Some tm's commented to me - how come you only have a 6 hour shift on thanksgiving?....well because I am coming back to close on black Friday with a 10 hour shift - would you like to switch with me? - immediately they say no and walk away.

I am learning that there is no pleasing everyone.
It seems as though the OP was one of the people working on the schedule and I am assuming pulling their hair out to either make accommodations or to make sure there was adequate coverage for all days and times. I am almost positive that if I was the one doing that schedule, and got requests and comments after the fact, my comments here would be about the same or a bit harsher...

Think about it.. hr asked availability..I'm sure hr tried to accommodate. Schedule written - then you get bombarded with peoples requests.. so hr goes back to the list, sees that you had open availability and has to tell you these are the hours you said you could work. Then imagine maybe 9-10 people saying the same thing to you. Do you start accommodating? redo the schedule? or just say suck it up.. If it were me, I know I would be getting annoyed because I would be thinking about all the time it took to do the schedule and how my other work was piling up..
 
Not that it matters, but I was NEVER asked about availability (I've been hard coded unavailable thu since I was hired, and fri since summer). They had the schedule mostly done before I quit, and I still had not been asked. I'm guessing they asked on a day I wasn't working.... and then in typical fashion I was supposed to magically know and seek that person out when I worked next. I'm not a freaking mind reader - how much effort does it take to post a note at the time clock saying "if you haven't talked to X or Z about XYZ dates, please seek them out by X date"??? Same as everything else.... no communication.

So unless you can prove I was asked about working outside of my availability (and I was not hired into a work center that works on Thanksgiving), I reserve the right to bitch about it :p
 
Last year they scheduled me on a day I am not available without asking. I was actual available because my main job was closed that day but I liked how they didnt even ask me when I could work they just threw poop at a wall and hoped it stuck.
 
My store's ETL-HR says nearly everyone who is unavailable Thursdays/Fridays will be scheduled for Thanksgiving/BF regardless of how upset they may be about it, and are expected to work out a way to make themselves available those days or negotiate a swap shift. "It's retail," she says.
 
6 Black Fridays for me ever since we switched to 4am last 2009. Opened 2009-2013 in the backroom.2013, I was scheduled in Electronics pushing reshop/pulls. 2014, I start in the backroom at 11pm Thanksgiving for 8 hrs, 4 hour break, then another 8hr shift in the backroom.

Not complaining because my family and relatives gather for lunch at Thanksgiving. I did had a problem last 2011 because we spent it out of state with a 4hr drive but I told them there's a possibility I won't be able to make it in time and they understood. I was still able to make it in the last minute.

Now not everyone spends thanksgiving at lunch time. Not everyone here doesn't have a life. Definitely not all stores asked their TMs for their availability.

Did they ask me if I can work 2am? No. My availability is 4am. My body is used to sleep at 1030pm. As a BRTM, I can function working with 4hrs of sleep. I've been working 2-3 weeks at 2am. Only reason I didn't complain is because they mostly have newbies in the backroom and I feel bad for them. Hell, when I try to sleep when I get home, I always wake up 45 minutes later.

So please don't tell me to suck it up, buttercup. Maybe if people actually do their job right, it wouldn't be a problem. Don't think everyone's lives here are the same.
 
wow, you guys have a messed up hr departments. Ours has a form, marks down your availability from thanksgiving through January and you have to initial it..only an emergency will allow you to change it.
 
no everyone's lives at Target aren't the same and everyone's families aren't the same - through the years growing up, someone in my family always had to work - or was in a football game or had another obligation. Such as going to in-laws (eww). We either planned dinner around them or they were there early or later. In my opinion it's not such a big deal. There have been times when we celebrated Thanksgiving on another day if we wanted to get everyone together and we couldn't do that on Thanksgiving.
 
We had our ETL-HR come around at the beginning of October with a list of things like Thanksgiving, BF, and a few other super busy days in November and December to ask about our availability. I was available Thanksgiving, but ended up getting it off.
 
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