Greed is NOT good

Well, the Christmas season got off to a rousing start -- and Black Friday took on an all-too literal meaning -- with the news that a 34-year-old maintenance worker at a Long Island Wal-Mart was trampled to death under the crush of 200 shoppers scrambling for "door-buster" bargains at 5:00 a.m. Friday.

I know every retailer is trying to do whatever it can to lure customers into its stores in this spiraling economy, and it's become such a cute little tradition to open early on the day after Thanksgiving to extend the hours of the biggest shopping day of the year. But it isn't cute anymore. When people's lives are in danger because shoppers are so desperate to get a bargain that they'll break down doors to get their hands on the last Xbox or flat-screen TV or Bratz All-Ages Club Skank (now with lower-back tattoo!), it's time to re-evaluate the whole process.

Of course, greed is the root cause of this whole mess -- the greed of the consumers, who want to BUYBUYBUY! for the lowest price possible, regardless of the cost to their dignity or the safety of their fellow shoppers and store employees; and the greed of the corporations, who need to maximize profits and keep shareholders or company executives happy, often at the expense of their own employees, who are torn away from their families at ridiculous hours (I mused about this last year in my "National Shopping Day" post -- what time do you suppose you'd have to go to bed on Thanksgiving Day so that you could be up and ready for work in time for a 5:00 a.m. store opening?).

Many, many moons ago, when the Vegas Gopher was just a Golden Gopher back in the motherland, I worked part-time at a Gap store. It was a decent job -- not exactly back-breaking work, nice people, good discount on the product -- but one thing really sucked. I had to be available to work on the day after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas. Non-negotiable. You WILL be scheduled for those days, and you WILL show up for your shift, or you WILL be fired.

Which meant no leisurely holiday weekends for me. No lingering over the turkey leftovers or singing carols 'round the old Tannenbaum on Christmas night for me. I had to be safely tucked away in my own bed (two hours from my parents' house or four hours from my in-laws) on those blessed nights, because two even more blessed holidays -- National Shopping Day and National Returns Day -- required my presence.

At least I lived to tell about it.