Non-essential job workers working on Christmas Day
 

What are everyone’s opinions about non-essential services (aka non-emergency/healthcare) services opening on Christmas Day (restaurants, individual shops)? Should everyone be forced to have a day off or should business carry on for profit?

It's vile! I could never go out on Christmas day, feel too bad for the staff!

I would work Xmas day for extra pay

They wouldn't be getting much profit if they stayed open, and certainly not enough to pay their staff twice/triple the amount for giving up potential time with their families. Christmas Day is probably the quietest day of the year for non-essential services so no, seems like a bad idea all round.

The facts are not everyone celebrates Christmas. If you want everything to shut down for a Christian/Western Secular holiday... then you should also shut down for all the other religions major holidays. Where I work... more than half the staff don't celebrate or even understand the traditions surrounding the day. I had to explain stockings to several people this year. It doesnt make sense in modern society to shut everything down.

Aside from all that retail workers deserve a day off too. It’s all about common humanity this time of year.

What are you on about most shop are shut Xmas day and the one that are open will be run by management or owners

Most but not all. And shops aren’t the only non-essential services open on Christmas. At least read the OP.

You said shop in your op :fist:

What your point People work on Xmas day to make money get over it and have fun

I didn’t only mention shops though did I. I gave examples of other non-essential services who might have to open on Christmas Day.

Either brush up on your comprehension skills or don’t troll.

Are you saying (emergency/healthcare) are non-essential

It’s just funny how much effort you put into trolling.

I've worked the past 9 Christmases, I don't mind too much, would love to have it off one year though

I don't know how it works in your country... but here in Canada if you don't get Xmas day off... you will still get a paid day off within that week... or you will get compensated with double time and a paid day off... which many people who don't celebrate Xmas appreciate... extra money for working a day they would have worked anyways on a holiday they aren't invested in.

They get paid double/triple time so I don’t see the issue working that day! I’m working Xmas day this year and I’m not too fussed!

Do you honestly think most people who work Christmas Day want to?

I think the world isn't as you perceive it anymore... and far less people celebrate xmas than you are implying... and many of those people like a restaurant or a shop on just another day to them.
I generally ask which employees celebrate Xmas and give them that day off in the schedule... and I would say 70% of my staff volunteer for xmas day.

Either way one national holiday a year isn’t the end of the world as far as non-essential workers are concerned.

Then why make that one Christmas? Why not any one of the other 13 national holidays? Your premise is the entirety of one country deserves one day off together? Ok... I'll buy that there are non essential services we can do without for one day... but shoving Christmas down every other cultures throat isn't necessary for that to happen.

25 December isn’t just a random date though is it. Some absolute Scrooges will disagree but Christmas is what it is from tradition. How many other public holidays have months of preparation and elaborate decoration behind them? There’s your answer.

Halloween.
Valentines day
Canada Day/4th of July over here. (These would be my preferred options... celebrate our common appreciation of the free country we live in... the one that let's us accept and celebrate our differances and doesnt force others into following just one subsets beliefs)
OR let's make one that isn't central to one religion and still honours family and togetherness.

I’m sure you’re a right barrel of laughs.

You going for insults because your argument is failing? That's very TiBB of you lol

LMAO. It’s not even that deep but I just feel the point might be being missed.

4 July isn’t even celebrated in the UK, just so you know. Like it or not Christmas Day is one of the more universally acknowledged holidays worldwide. The world doesn’t start and end in the US or Canada.

And yet it was still unnecessary

By world wide you are entirely focusing on Western or Christian countries and that is my point... the world doesn't start or end in the UK, Canada, or the US... and the cultures of all over the world are here in our countries... why do we need people who aren't Chriatian to stop everything to observe our traditions when we don't do the same for theirs. All we can do is support each other if following our own beliefs. It's why when a Muslim holiday occurs, I don't schedule my Muslim employees on the day(s) they observe their traditions... but we don't close the business for them.

I am working Christmas day and get paid double and only work between 7 and 12 in the morning. I am a home care assistant so it's part of my job.

My friend works in co-op and it's one thats co-op named but ran by somebody else and they are open christmas day and their manager offered them double time and an extra day paid holiday. Nobody wanted it and so the owner is running it, which in my view is how it should work, i.e. optional.

You can’t shut everything down for a day.
Most places that can shut will.
Large supermarkets etc.
A lot of shift workers etc used to work it between them, if you had kids you would swap with the younger ones, have Xmas day off and maybe do the night shift, then on New Year’s Eve let the younger ones without kids off to celebrate.

Not everyone celebrates Christmas. Let people who don't celebrate work Xmas then take other holidays such as Eid off

I always try to avoid the shops on Eve and Boxing Day, it's just not fair on the poor kids who have to work there.

Do you work in a mosque or something? Or maybe an outreach program for neglected children?

Nope

but when you go and live in their countries you are forced to obey their religious holiday schedule
I like our Xmas/Easter days off, it's part of our tradition
don't see any need to bend backwards to deny our heritage

I really don't mind doing a shift on xmas morning because I like the extra pay. so don't stop my bag with your sympathy

Do we all believe in God now?

In these secular times, Christmas has been wisely rebranded as a family festival, getting together etc.
I don't believe getting rid of Christmas, its symbology or days off is a good idea. Though the West is largely secular now, Christianity is part of our tradition.
Denying our traditions to accomodate others is not the way to do it. Instead we should make room for their traditions where applicable. So for example employment law that allows them take time off for their religious holidays and allowing them space to celebrate in public arena.
Golders Green in London is a good example. Home to a large Jewish community, it has a large menora (Hannukah candelabra) next to a large Christmas tree in December.
In the past some miguided local councils tried to secularize Christmas and it didn't go down well. Such ideas only lead to resentment of immigrants and their traditions and fuels extreme right.
Live (Christmas) and let live (other religious festivals).

I'm not saying cancel Xmas and Easter and time off... I'm saying everything doesnt need to grind to a halt for one religion... let others who don't observe it continue on with their lives. That isn't bending backwards and it isn't denying anything.

Let's face it, when it half one on xmas day and you ain't got fags left, these people are like a godsend.

Atheists and agnostics can enjoy a day off just as much as anyone else.