This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my Wal-Mart job.

..they go against every family traditon i know...decent wage, consideration of families by closing during holidays etc. they are part of the problem in this country with a group of wealthy inviduals who want "serfs" and slaves who work till they die. wal-mart also gave a large chunk of money to tony bennet in his defeat in the recent election. wal-mart is anti-family.

When I was growing up a few decades ago, my mom always worked on Thanksgiving. At the time she was a cashier at a convenience store. We would schedule our holiday meal around her work schedule either eating before she went in to work or after she got off depending on her schedule. Although it may not have always been convenient, it was just a fact of life and never destroyed our holiday or our ability to celebrate as a family.

when I saw the employees of Wal-mart starting petitions, I started reflecting on who all works on the holiday.

We all know that police, fire fighters, EMTs, and doctors and nurses at many clinics and all hospitals work whether or not it is a holiday. And we all know that the military certainly doesn't take the day off. But there are many, many other groups who are keeping our society running through the holidays too. Many of us expect to travel for the holiday and whether that means air, bus, train, or car travel all those services are up and running through the holiday. Pilots, flight attendents, air port staff (including ticket staff, secuirty, cleaning staff, etc), bus drivers, gas station attendants are all working to make sure we can get to where we need to go. And for local travel subways and cabs keep running in all large cities. Some of us that travel must stay in a hotel and they are open and staffed as well.

For those that stay close to home, it used to be that grocery stores closed for the day and it was EXTREMELY frustrating when you realized that you forgot to pick up the secret ingredient you needed or ran out of milk or butter or eggs, but now many are open for all or part of the day so you can always make sure that you have everything you need to prepare your meal. For those that don't cook and prefer to enjoy a nice evening at a restaurant, many of those are also open for the holdiay some even serving up special holiday menus. That means that their wait staff, cooks, and cleaning staff are all working through the holiday. For many families seeing a holiday movie is a tradition and as far back as I can recall movie theaters have always been open on the holiday.

Pharmacies are usually open, as are convenience stores. Most also are open on Christmas as well.

But other workers are either on work or at a minimum on call. If there is a power outage, the powers crews will be available. If your furnace stops working, your water pipe breaks, or you experience an electrical problem, you will be able to find someone who is available to provide service even on a holiday.

The local news keeps reporting, most newspapers keep printing so we can all make sure we read all the Black Friday flyers...

When I saw the petitions, it made me wonder why the employees at Wal-Mart thought they were so special that they should get the day off when there are so many other people out there to whom working on Thanksgiving is just a fact of their lives.