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Top reasons to hate the Christmas season
Brian Lancaster
Issue date: 12/3/08 Section: Opinion
It seems as though the time of year known as "Christmas season" takes up more and more time each year, starting earlier, and, oddly enough, ending later. Yet we never seem to get tired of the holiday occurrences that plague this time of year.
Personally, I absolutely loathe this time of year (I know, it's so surprising -- another thing I hate).
The fact is, the holiday season turns all Americans into consumer zombies. Maybe if the holiday spirit made people cheerful as they did their shopping, I would be a little more OK with it. However, I have worked retail during the holiday season, and have seen firsthand the monsters that shoppers can become.
So, in my traditional rant style, my three loyal readers, here are the reasons why I absolutely hate the holiday season. Let's make this a top three list.
Reason number three: Black Friday
Honestly, I didn't care about Black Friday until this year. I knew about it, but I just avoided shopping areas like the plague.
However, this year, I signed onto the news networks, as I usually do, on Black Friday, and I was assaulted with the headlines concerning a Wal-mart employee who was trampled to death as he was unlocking the doors to the store on Friday morning.
How is this excusable by any stretch of the imagination? A person, a human being, was killed because the shoppers at the store wanted to get those deals before anyone else.
The worst part is that, because it was a mob of people, no one can be held responsible.
On CNN.com, a news video explained the next steps in finding a responsible party or a way to go about the criminal proceedings. Essentially, finding one responsible shopper would be next to impossible, and yet at the end, the reporter states that "a civil lawsuit against Wal-mart is all but inevitable."
Wait a minute -- a civil lawsuit against Wal-mart?
I realize that the family of the worker would like compensation for the ultimately avoidable death of their beloved family member, but I find it hard to swallow that the party that has to take the responsibility for his death is the company that he worked for, and not any of the shoppers that inadvertently killed him.
Personally, I absolutely loathe this time of year (I know, it's so surprising -- another thing I hate).
The fact is, the holiday season turns all Americans into consumer zombies. Maybe if the holiday spirit made people cheerful as they did their shopping, I would be a little more OK with it. However, I have worked retail during the holiday season, and have seen firsthand the monsters that shoppers can become.
So, in my traditional rant style, my three loyal readers, here are the reasons why I absolutely hate the holiday season. Let's make this a top three list.
Reason number three: Black Friday
Honestly, I didn't care about Black Friday until this year. I knew about it, but I just avoided shopping areas like the plague.
However, this year, I signed onto the news networks, as I usually do, on Black Friday, and I was assaulted with the headlines concerning a Wal-mart employee who was trampled to death as he was unlocking the doors to the store on Friday morning.
How is this excusable by any stretch of the imagination? A person, a human being, was killed because the shoppers at the store wanted to get those deals before anyone else.
The worst part is that, because it was a mob of people, no one can be held responsible.
On CNN.com, a news video explained the next steps in finding a responsible party or a way to go about the criminal proceedings. Essentially, finding one responsible shopper would be next to impossible, and yet at the end, the reporter states that "a civil lawsuit against Wal-mart is all but inevitable."
Wait a minute -- a civil lawsuit against Wal-mart?
I realize that the family of the worker would like compensation for the ultimately avoidable death of their beloved family member, but I find it hard to swallow that the party that has to take the responsibility for his death is the company that he worked for, and not any of the shoppers that inadvertently killed him.
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