Anthony Hardwick Just Can't Bring Himself to Work on Friday

There's been much made in the media about the decision that some retailers have made to open at midnight on Black Friday.  In some circles, retailers are being criticized for their heartless decision to make their employees work in the middle of the night immediately after a holiday.  In fact, a Target employee named Anthony Hardwick (pictured) has launched a petition on Choice.org to have Target rethink their decision, as it impacts Target employees' Thanksgivings. 

Pardon me, but what a bunch of crap.  For a lot of reasons: 

• Businesses exist to make money.  The way they make money is to give their customers what they want.  And if the customer wants to buy at midnight on Black Friday, it is incumbent on the business to provide that service. 
• A job at Target is a job in retail.  If you're in retail, that means you'll likely be working Thanksgiving day, Christmas Eve, and all sorts of inconvenient times.  I've been in retail about half of my working career, and I know that it requires working on holidays.  That's the career I have chosen, and those are the table stakes.  I'm not sure how this could come as a surprise to anyone in the industry. 
• Don't want to work at midnight, Bucko?  Simple - quit.  Nobody is holding a gun to your head.  Given the 9% unemployment rate, I'm betting someone would be happy to take that job you just can't bring yourself to perform.  So cancel the call to the wahmbulence, grow a pair, and find a new job. 
• In all of the whining about the poor retail employees, very few people ever mention those workers that will be out there at the same time, working, and not complaining.  Police, fire, heath care, convenience stores are just some of thousands (if not millions) of folks that will be on the clock while folks are queuing up outside some retail store come midnight.  And don't get me started on the military.  Those people will be thousands of miles from their loved ones, with their asses on the line, with a plate of cold turkey roll if they're lucky, and idiots like Anthony Hardwick have the gall to complain that his quaint little dinner is going to be slightly interrupted.  What a whiney, sissy little coward.  He should be ashamed of himself. 

While I'm sure target will enjoy getting the petition and the 190,000 signatures, something tells me that the millions of customers that will be shopping with them around midnight on Black Friday might somehow trump it.