I'm scratching my head over the Change.org folks getting behind a Target employee's petition to push back Target's Black Friday opening time from midnight to 5am. He says staff have to work the Black Friday sale or risk losing their job, and he says having the sale start at midnight means he can't have a Thanksgiving meal with his family.
Now, I'm all for keeping stores closed on Thursday so staff members can celebrate with family, but I'm not sure I get why a midnight store opening means he couldn't enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner first, any more than a 5am opening would. Either way, the retail staff member doesn't get a lot of sleep after the family gathering, and the shift at the store will be miserable, but that's pretty much the deal for retail jobs.
For what it's worth, an awful lot of people don't have that Friday off, and plenty more even have to work on Thursday, either because they're in a public safety job and they're out there protecting the rest of us, or they're in the hospitality field or travel services and they're helping us get where we're going or taking care of us once we arrive.
