Another (holi)day, another dollar!

So yesterday was about how work can be a convenient excuse for getting out of something that you really don't want to do. Today is the flip side of the coin--when your friends and family are all out doing something really fun or it's a holiday when everyone you know has the day off and you are stuck at work! When you're in the retail or grocery store business it seems like you're busiest times are when everyone else has off from work! Like for example--this year New Year's Eve was on a Friday and I always work on Fridays. The store did close early--at 9:00 p.m-but that didn't seem early enough for me. I was picturing my family at home eating and drinking and laughing as they geared up for midnight and by the time I got back from work the party would be half-way over or relatives would already be drunk and passed out on the couch. A friend had invited me to her party and that didn't start until 9:30 or 10:00 but after a four or five hour shift at work I really didn't know if I would feel like going back home and getting dressed and heading out to a party. (I know that makes me sound very, very old!). The policy for working holidays at the grocery store (and I think it's pretty common in most customer service or retail businesses) is that there are certain days during the holiday season that are "blocked off". This is either because the expect to be very busy and need as many people working as possible or because it's a day when no one wants to work and they want to avoid everyone requesting off for the same day and having no one there to work. I have to say though that my store manager is really good about scheduling over the holidays. First, he puts up a sign up sheet so that you could volunteer to work certain shifts over the holidays and if he didn't have enough volunteers then he just scheduled people based on their normal availability--which seems to me to be the fairest way to handle it. And certain employees do get holiday pay (which I think is time and 1/2) but I an not one of them. So a week before New Years I started scheming about how I could get that Friday off. Well it turned out I did get that Friday off and I enjoyed some time with my family and then went to my friend's party for the rest of the night. I came home around 1:00 and feel fast asleep. So congratulations to everyone reading this for making it through another hectic holiday season! Only 361 shopping days until next Christmas!