Thanksgiving and non-retail friends

[Food Lady]

I love my friends, but they can be ignorant. I was texted what I and my brother are doing for Thanksgiving. First, I work retail. And for the last few years there has been a big deal made about employees having to work on Grey Thursday. How did she miss that? She's known me several years. She also must have missed the mass email I sent to all the important people in my life about my brother's surgery. Well, she heard me talk about it in person. One of the possible outcomes is paralysis. We still have no idea when it will happen nor what the result will be. Even if he's not paralyzed, who knows if he'll really be able to leave the house? It's spinal surgery. I can't speak for his plans or my own. So I texted her that nicely and she was all "Come by if you want; it should be early evening." Who doesn't know the stores open then? It's all over the news and facebook. All I can say is she doesn't do facebook nor watch much tv. I don't really watch tv either, but I am aware. Well, I guess non-retail people are just clueless. I can't blame them, but it's so irritating. At this point it's a sore spot with me and I've scrapped the idea of ever really having the holiday again. Why bother trying? It's like being one of those religious people who don't celebrate holidays and having to deal with people who do.

[AccountingDrone]

I have worked retail, restaurant and call centers, and Rob spent 20 years in the Navy. I am so not used to being able to have holidays on he actual holiday ... We normally have get-togethers with assorted friends the weekend previous or the weekend after. We tend to have one big party in the yard for everybody we know in May before all the holiday grabbers tag all the weekends. Sort of a variant of the old school family reunions - my family had gotten into the habit of having one giant birthday party for the whole extended family instead of the random scattering around the calendar. Everybody brings the birthday and christmas presents and we have a blast.

[And I hope your Brother's operation and recovery go well!]

[blas87]

It was similar for me when I worked an "off" shift for so many years, and the year stint I did on weekend days, and people just didn't remember or didn't care to remember that I wasn't always able to do things with the regular 9-5ers.

Eventually, I quit caring about them, too. Some people got the hint after getting responses to texts at 3:00 am or me just not even showing up to their 11 am gathering after I'd worked 6:30 pm to 6:30 am four times in a row that week already.

What really hurt were the people I thought were friends, who were constantly texting me or messaging me to hang out during afternoons/evenings when I had to sleep for work that night, when I thought they'd known me long enough to know that I was working. I know I should be thankful that people think of me, but no one ever considered that I was on a different shift than most people, and if I was given enough notice, I could TRY to work around it or be sure to be up during normal times on days off, but that was just too much to ask I guess.

As far as holidays, they're paid time off days at my work, but generally because that's a seperate space than regular hours worked, that's when the ass nuggets in management try to assign mandatory overtime. So, you do get paid the extra, but...fuck...man. Seriously.

[KellyHabersham]

It was similar for me when I worked an "off" shift for so many years, and the year stint I did on weekend days, and people just didn't remember or didn't care to remember that I wasn't always able to do things with the regular 9-5ers.

I too, went through something similar, and it's one of the reasons I barely know some of my cousins - we didn't get together with them very often, and when we did, it was usually a day/time when I had to work.