Sunday 9 December 2007

Thoughts on "24-hour-a-day" Shopping

Old "Orgie" over at the "Eye on Saskatchewan" blog has posted a stinging yet humorous article about 24 hour shopping entitled: Hello 911....Where can I get bacon at 4 am?. Check it out!

3 comments:

Yo's Place said...

I understand that you are "looking out" for us union employees. But my question is "What is the problem with 24 hour shopping during the Christmas season?"
Maybe some staff are wanting a few extra hours during the Holidays to ease their bank account.
As far as your comment about the strain on staff and their families working the evenings, does anyone worry about the Hospital and Nursing Home employees who do this all the time as their regular rotations, 365 days a year???
No, the public expect them to be working evenings and nights. No one complains. We do it as part of our job. Nobody worries about my family.
I live 60 miles away from my workplace, so if a store like Walmart is staying open during Christmas to accomodate people like me, ALL THE POWER TO THEM. If I can work and do my Christmas shopping on days or nights that I'm in the city, I am gracious.
I wonder if the biggest complaint about Walmart doing these hours is not so much that the families only have a certain amount of money to spend, or the hours, or is it that they are a U.S. based Company on C anadian soil taking in Canadian money? One has to wonder what is the real complaint. By the way, I am a Canadian.

Larry Hubich said...

Yo,

Thank you for your comments and thank you for participating in this blog.

I completely understand your comments about people who work shift work in areas like Health Care, Fire Fighting, Police, etc. My wife of 31 years is a Nurse and has worked in hospitals for all of those years.

These workers are not always appreciated for the extra commitment they make to the health and well being of society. But expecting everyone else to work extraordinary hours because they have to is not what I hear people who work in these sectors calling for.

Health care in the hospital environment and nursing homes has always been a continuous operation. But that doesn't mean that everyone should be in 24 hour a day operations.

There is a huge difference between the provision of such societal services as health care and 24 hour a day consumerism. They aren't even in the same league.

Even Doctor's offices, lawyers offices, car dealerships, autobody shops, pizza joints, restaurants, coffee shops, skating rinks, churches, etc., etc., etc. have a limit on the number of hours that they are open.

I also know the last thing my wife wants to do when she gets off a 12-hour shift at 10:00 p.m is go to Superstore for an hour to pick up groceries. Let alone getting up at 2:00 in the morning to go to Zellers for a pair of panty-hose.

Also, having grown up in small town Saskatchewan myself I understand and appreciate the challenges of limited shopping, and the need to go to the city for some things.

But we can do it without having stores open 24 - 7 - 365.

Thanks again!

Richard_Cranium said...

If a store opens from 9pm to 9am, and NO ONE shops, then they will run at a hudge loss, and adjust their hours accordingly. Let the consumers shop when they want. The businesses will decide when it is and when it is not economically viable to stay open, and adjust their hours accordingly.