By Andrea Calderon

Retail stores seem to be opening earlier each year on Black Friday. Some retail stores go as far as starting Black Friday the day before.

Many of California State University, Bakersfield students work or have worked in retail and know the hassle that Black Friday brings. Instead of looking forward to spending time with loved ones, we have to look forward to spending the evening working.

“I haven’t worked in retail, but I know people who do” said freshman Ally Berry, a psychology major. “It sucks for them because they don’t get to participate in events with their family.” America is taking holiday shopping and big savings too serious.

“Instead of enjoying Thanksgiving, people are rushing to go shopping,” said senior Heidi Wise an environmental resource management major who works at Walmart. “I don’t like it all.”

Consumers are not the only ones rushing through Thanksgiving. Retail workers have to rush through dinner or not enjoy dinner at all in order to go work.

“I had to eat fast food for dinner because I didn’t have time to eat dinner with my family,” said Jesus Pulido a history major. Pulido was the only one who had to do this.

Last year, I worked at Kmart. The day of Thanksgiving Kmart opened at 6 a.m. and did not close until the next day at midnight. The first doorbuster started at 7 p.m. on Thanksgiving and had two other ones at midnight and 5 a.m. My family does not do anything special on Thanksgiving, and I hate turkey and anything with pumpkin. However, I was upset. I did not mind working as on Thanksgiving instead of getting paid $8, which was last year’s minimum wage, I got paid $12 per hour. I was upset because I had to be nice to customers who some did not deserve it, and I only got to go home to sleep. If I were a psychopath, a mass murder would have occurred at Kmart.

But aside from tough customers, some of my coworkers were a little upset over the fact that they did not get to enjoy Thanksgiving with their family. In fact, we spent the four day weekend working. We all had eight hour shifts for four days even though most of us were part-time employees.

If you are working on Thanksgiving and Black Friday remember that at least you don’t have school to worry about. But if you are not working and will go shopping remember to be nice to the employees who make Black Friday possible.