Different times of year can be particularly intense for service workers, depending on the industry. If you work in a grocery store, the days leading up to Thanksgiving can be particularly awful. Cashiers in a flower shop might experience the most stress around Valentine’s Day. Certainly, the approach of Christmas is difficult for many people in retail. This is a great time to practice being kind to service workers, but such kindness is important year ’round.
Here are some ways we can spread kindness to the people who serve us:
We can put ourselves in their shoes.
I really think everyone should work a low-level service job early in their life. But some of us have short memories, or we just didn’t have the benefit of working in such a job. Whether or not we know what it’s like to work as a cashier or server, we can try to imagine what the day has been like for the person serving us, and then ask: How would I want to be treated?
One thing we shouldn’t assume: That the person who is serving us wants to work on a holiday. Many businesses don’t ask for volunteers to work a holiday shift; they just schedule people. And while many employers do pay workers extra on holidays, there is no law in the United States that requires that. One Thanksgiving-hater I know worked for a grocery store that was closed that day. When I asked if she would prefer to work on Thanksgiving, she told me that she still liked having the day off. While there are people who are happy to work on a holiday, it’s safe to assume that many would rather be somewhere else.
We can plan ahead.
Sometimes the unexpected happens. The Bumpus’ hounds get into your kitchen and abscond with your turkey, and all of sudden you’re missing the centerpiece of your Christmas dinner. Sometimes it’s not a matter of the unexpected. You may not celebrate a holiday that most of the people around you are celebrating. At times like those, we may be thankful for the grocer or restaurant that’s open on a holiday. But we can keep the demand for holiday workers to a minimum if we plan ahead, making our grocery list and checking it twice — so to speak — and even preparing some dishes earlier in the week.
We can consider dining and entertaining at home.
Not all families have the option of celebrating a holiday together at home. I know of one family that goes out to dinner on Thanksgiving because no one has a home large enough to host a meal that includes everybody. But if we dream of a world where more people can relax and celebrate with loved ones on certain days of the year, we might want to rethink traditions like family outings to the movie theater after holiday dinners. What if we broke out the board games and went to the movies together another time?
We can reconsider recreational shopping and our love of “sales.”
Over the years, Black Friday has crept into Thanksgiving, although as more and more people choose alternative ways of shopping and celebrating, I have hope that this “doors open on Thanksgiving” trend may reverse itself. I also find it ironic that the workers who make the least usually spend Labor Day waiting on those of us who make more than them as we shop Labor Day sales.
What if found ways to celebrate holidays that didn’t involve shopping? What if we started to question the “deals” that entice us to shop on holidays?
We can tip generously.
While service workers appreciate generous tips at any time of the year, this can be especially nice to do for people who are working on a holiday. Service jobs tend to be low-paying jobs. Tips can make a big difference to the people who serve us.
We can choose not to take our bad mood out on the people serving us.
Holidays can be stressful, especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas. We search for parking spots, push through crowded stores, and tackle to-do lists a mile long. It’s important to keep in mind that service workers are not responsible for the fact that the store is out of canned pumpkin or for the long lines at the registers. Take a deep breath, and let it go. It’s better for you and the people who serve you.
(As someone who does not like crowded retail establishments blaring bad Christmas songs over their speaker systems, I often tell myself that next year I’m going to get virtually all of my shopping done before Thanksgiving — not only Christmas shopping, but all the toilet paper and shelf-stable groceries I think I’ll need until January. I’ve never completely succeeded in doing that, but if shopping during this season sets your teeth on edge, it’s something to consider.)
We can clean up after ourselves.
This is another one of those things we should be doing all year, but it’s especially important when retailers are crowded and busy. Whether it’s taking items out of the dressing room when we’re done trying them on or wiping the seat in the public restroom, cleaning up after ourselves makes things more pleasant both for stressed-out service workers and for our fellow shoppers and diners.
We can ask ourselves what we can do for people who work on a holiday.
There will always be a need for people to work on holidays. Hospitals don’t shut down for Christmas. Crime doesn’t stop on Thanksgiving. But there are all sorts of things we can do to try to make working on a holiday a little more joyful. Employers can give extra holiday pay or, if that truly is out of the question, at least offer a meal. Friends and family can plan their celebrations around the schedule of someone who has to work. And those of us who encounter people working on a holiday can go out of our way to be kind — just as we’d like if we had to work on a holiday.