It is coming up on holiday season faster than I even realized as I sat in a scheduling meeting the other day at work where we were discussing the holiday working schedule.  It is about this time of year that I get super frustrated with people.  Not because of the holidays themselves but because of people’s attitudes surrounding the holidays and working.  The holidays are just a date.  A time to celebrate family.  But is does not have to be exactly on that date  Just ask those of us that are in professions where working holidays is expected.

Every year around the holidays, It never fails that I will see a bunch of memes or posts on social media about the “poor retail worker” that has to work the holidays.  How everyone has a “right” to have the holidays off to spend with their family.  Let’s talk about this.  Having worked in a profession for the last 20 years that has to work holidays, I find these posts dumb.  No, I won’t feel sorry for the “poor retail worker” who has to work holidays.  I won’t feel sorry for anyone who has to work holidays.  Why?  Because to those of us that work the holidays the day is just that…a date on the calendar.

Now, before you get your chonies in a twist, let me explain.  The point of holidays is to spend it with your loved ones, right?  Well, celebrate on a different day if you have to work.  Thanksgiving dinner can be on a different day.  Christmas can be on a different day. Yes, it can.  I know plenty of people who have to work the holidays whose families celebrate Christmas on a different day.  If Christmas church service is important to you, then you try to arrange to go to a service that works around your schedule.  I look at my church schedule and find one that works for me and I work night shift  Yup.  That’s right, I never miss Christmas mass because my church has more than one service.  Sometimes it means going on Christmas Eve at like 4 pm and then go to work, but I go with my family.  We celebrate Christmas whenever we can all get together and usually with my Mom that means the week before because all of us work the holidays and she lives 2 hours away.  But we make our own celebration.  Every year, my Bubby and I Skype Christmas with Seester who lives in Texas and we have to arrange when we can do it because all of us here and her husband work holidays.  You can make it work.  You just have to realize that the holiday is just a date on the calendar.  Make it your own. Your family really can adapt. As for kids, they really do not care what day they open presents or on what day Santa comes.  Let’s be real…they are in it for the loot.

As for the “poor retail worker”,  nope I don’t feel sorry for them one bit.  Maybe it’s because before I became a nurse, I worked in other industries that had to work holidays as well.  So lets take a moment and realize how many people work the holidays.  The hotels you stay at when traveling to your family or while visiting family?  Those workers all work the holidays.  The gas you put in your car to drive to Grandma’s house?  The gas station is manned by people working the holidays.  Some people don’t like to cook on the holidays and would prefer to go to a buffet or a restaurant.  Those workers are all working.  When you forget the rolls for Thanksgiving and run out to get them at the grocery store?  It’s open because people are working.  Those trips you plan around the holidays to Disneyland or some other destination?  The airlines and resort staff are working to make sure you get where you need and your holiday is perfect.  When there are car wrecks because of all the tired drivers?  You can thank all the police, fire fighters, emergency crews and staff at the hospitals that are working that day to save your loved ones.  Hospitals don’t close on the holidays.  We are open 24/7/365.  We work holidays to help your loved ones get better.  We give up time with our families to take care of yours.  We lack sleep a lot of time to spend time with our loved ones on a different day because we make our own holidays and it is just fine.  Some of us don’t mind working the holidays. We like making the overtime or we just like making holidays special for those who might feel like crap or who are traveleing.  Pocket Fiance says working Christmas morning at the hotel she works at is her favorite. I love working Christmas Eve and wrapping presents for the kids who are patients and leaving them in their rooms in the middle of the night so that Santa came to see them.  There are a lot of us who work the holidays.  So, no I don’t feel sorry for retail workers.  At all.

Stop with the memes and posts about the “poor retail worker” working and how they should be with their families.  How about posts and thanks to all of us that do work the holidays?  How about a smile and thank you when you see us working hard on the holidays?  Yes, sometimes we would rather be with our families too (or not as the case may be) on the holidays, but there we are working.  So take the time this holiday season to make a post thanking all those of us working.  That is a better use of your time.  Nurses around the world will thank you.  Hell all of us in different industries that work the holidays will thank you.  End rant.

Oh yeah.  I didn’t die today.  I did pick my own holiday dates to celebrate with my family because of work but I didn’t die.  I am Fat Girl proud to be a nurse who works the holidays and makes her holidays a different day Running.  The experiment continues…