Last year, I spent Thanksgiving by myself. My roommate was working, and I didn’t want her to be alone on the holiday weekend, so I stayed in Grand Forks and kept her company when she wasn’t working.

This year, I’ll be working. I live by myself now (she graduated and has a big girl job in another city), so it will just be me and my cats.

Although I’m sad I won’t get to be with family or friends on the holiday, I’m not angry. It’s easy to expect me to be — Thanksgiving is a national holiday, after all. I should be with family. I should not be forced to work.

But using these excuses feel no better than whining. I knew when I took a job at a hotel that holidays would become irrelevant. Hotels don’t get to close their doors for anything — winter storms or winter festivities.

I understand how lucky I am to be able to choose the job I work at. Many people don’t have that choice, they take what they can get. It makes sense that people get angry that Thanksgiving is not an automatic day off.

It’s hard getting everyone together at the same time in the same place. Thanksgiving is an easy target for family reunions since everyone expects to get the day off. But what happens when people have to work? We miss out on family. We miss out on friends. And yes, that is really, very sad.

But I don’t understand the anger behind Thanksgiving being a work day. I’d understand if people were being forced to work on a religious day that required rest. I’d understand if the anger were directed at a society who expects to be able to shop-til-they-drop the day after giving thanks. But mostly, the argument comes across as whining — I didn’t get the day off that I wanted.

Why aren’t we focusing on what really matters? The working conditions that occur around Thanksgiving are deplorable. My hotel job is already pretty cushy — what happens in retail stores on Black Friday makes my job look like napping on the sofa. After all, I don’t risk my life opening the hotel doors on Black Friday. I don’t have to worry about two grown adults getting into a fist fight over a half price toaster oven. I don’t need to worry about a customer yelling at me and accusing my mother of many vulgar acts because the flash sale deal expired twenty minutes ago.

But instead of this, we hear about how we should be keeping stores closed on Thanksgiving. During the time we could be making a difference, we are complaining about something small.

The Black Friday horror stories don’t start circulating until after the fact. It’s almost part of the commercialized appeal: “How many crowds will crush people to death this year? Be sure to join the office betting pool!” We hear about the horrors after they happen, when we can safely do nothing while balancing our checkbooks and marveling at our savings from Black Friday.

Why aren’t we talking about this now? It’s perfectly fine for me to get worked up over working on Thanksgiving, but not over the safety of Black Friday. Am I the only one who sees the irony in this? The fact I’m working on Thanksgiving makes me more thankful — I have a job and a paycheck. I have a family who wishes I were with themBlack Friday is the exact opposite of Thanksgiving. It is a celebration of not only capital, but of the glory of battle…ahem, sorry, I mean  shopping.

I have no problem with the concept of Black Friday — I’m happy to take advantage of a good deal. I have a problem with the execution. It overshadows what we have to be thankful for both in deals and horror stories.

Yes, now is the time to be thankful, but now is also the time when we can figure out how to change what needs changing. We can’t erase past Black Friday catastrophes, but why aren’t we trying harder to prevent the ones that are certain to keep happening again as long as we keep the same attitudes alive?

Kjerstine Trooien is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected].