Support or Humiliate Your Employer? You Make the Call…

In my early career, I often had to work holidays. I hated being away from my family while they were off work / school, but the business required it, so my coworkers and I did it. Instead, maybe we should have started an online petition to protest our employer, as Target and Best Buy employees recently did. From the Miami Herald:

Count your blessings and then get to work. That may be Thanksgiving for more retail workers this year, as stores — desperate to pull in buyers on the first weekend of the holiday shopping season — push their openings earlier and earlier. Unhappy workers…are trying to persuade companies to back off, but retailers say they’re stuck: It’s what customers want.

Reporting to work at 11 p.m. on Thanksgiving ruins what is supposed to be a day spent with family, said Anthony Hardwick, who works part-time at a Target store in Omaha. His online petition against Target Corp.’s plan to open at midnight on Black Friday had drawn more than 100,000 signatures…“The folks that work at Target are going to be working all night overnight on one of the most hectic retail days of the holidays,” Hardwick said. “They need to be well-rested for that, so they have to miss out on Thanksgiving if they’re going to be working overnight.”

Fair warning: If you now expect a heartwarming day after Thanksgiving post in support of the workers, you’ve got the wrong writer. I think if you have a job, you should work hard at it and support your company. Work hard, do your absolute best and try not to make your company look bad. Pretty simple.

Listen, I do feel badly for employees and their families—I cherish the time I spend with family, and I personally hate that stores need to start the madness earlier each year. But I think sometimes you make sacrifices for the good of your employer, even if we are talking about seasonal retail jobs that might not inspire commitment or a bunch of discretionary effort.

Some people might call me a sucker and say corporations don’t care about employees, even those who work hard. Laurie Ruettimann actually wrote a post called You Can Be Average at work. Her main point is don’t kill yourself with work and that, at best “If you are lucky, your job is a pathway to a better personal life.”

I love Laurie, and I like the “job as pathway to a better life piece,” but I do note that it is dependent on having a job. Protesting your company’s business decisions online is not a great career enhancement strategy.

Check out Mary Huskey, a Wal-Mart employee scheduled to work at 9 pm on Thanksgiving Day:

Retail is retail. People want to shop, and if they want to shop, we have to be there for them…It’s a living, and you know that when you go into it. I’m just thankful that I have a place to work, unlike other people that don’t have a job.

Mary gets it—you show up and work hard to support your company. If that does not feel right to you, then maybe you are not aligned with your industry/company, and that’s okay—I think it just means it could be time for you to leave. Don’t show up your employer with a meaningless petition.  Laurie’s advice is to “be a good human being and use your time wisely.” With that, I totally agree.