#1—Refrain from
making purchases
on holidays (or Sundays).
This may
surprise you as being an expression of love and kindness, but don't you want a
day off? Don't you want a day you can depend on being with your family or
friends? Of course you do, and so does
everyone else. Your shopping on a
holiday touches many families by keeping some people away from home on that
day.
I am not
advocating passing a law to limit business on holidays or Sundays, but we live
in a capitalist society that is driven by consumers. It is foolish for a wise businessman to pay
for a full staff (or even a partial staff) to work on days when no customers
walk through the doors. After
experiencing losses on a particular day, a store owner will give that day off
for all or most employees. Will that
hurt business? Of course not. My family drinks lots of milk. I will buy milk, just not on New Year's
Day. The store will get my business (and
money) the day before or the next day.
The store's overall income
will not change just because I did not purchase my milk on New Year's Day. Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby are just two
examples of many successful businesses that choose to give every employee
Sundays (and many holidays) off.
Of course,
not everyone can have a holiday off. For
example, hospitals still need to care for their patients, but by not scheduling
elective procedures and tests on holidays, more hospital staff members can
spend holidays with loved ones. In
addition, some people say they would rather work than spend time with friends
or family, but when you shop, you do not get to decide if the employees who
prefer to work are the people who will be serving you. Realistically, many people that make that
type of comment do so as a way to deal with the fact they are working on a day
they believe they should have off.
Consider
Thanksgiving. It was not that long ago
that nearly everyone in the United States could be with family on Thanksgiving,
except for our community caretakers, such as police officers, firemen,
etc. Then the Black Friday opening times
began to creep backwards. Slowly the
times reached back into the night to cause employees of major chains to cut
short their Thanksgiving celebrations in order to get ready for early
shoppers. This year thousands of
employees across the nation did not get Thanksgiving off at all because of
shopping specials Thursday and Friday.
We could
all say, "But I had to! I could not
pass up that deal." I
understand. Yet, consider this. If every consumer across the nation put aside
self-centeredness (and greed) and refused to shop on holidays, do you think
smart business executives would continue to be open? Wouldn't they offer specials on different
days? Who do you think pushed the opening
times back? Consumers! When shoppers started lining up at stores
four hours before they opened, the stores said, "If they want to spend
their money here that badly, let's open the doors and welcome them in!"
Shoppers
influence and direct how businesses operate.
Shoppers can use that same influence to express love and kindness to
employees (who are often paid minimum wage) by refraining from making purchases
on holidays and Sundays. Those employees
will still get in their much-needed hours to work, but they can work on the
other days, which will then be much busier.
As a result, their families can happily be touched by the breadwinners always knowing they can spend time with their families on holidays and at
least one particular day each week.
No comments:
Post a Comment