rowantheexplorer:

Dear family who want me around for major holidays,

If you haven’t worked retail since the Reagan administration, kindly FUCK OFF. Your Reagan-era and Reagan-inspired laissez-faire policies are why I fear retaliation for even considering asking off for any time in November or December. Yes, this will be my sixth holiday season in a row with no time off. I am well aware. I don’t have “seniority,” I can’t “pull strings,” there is no one who can “cover for me,” and my manager will certainly not “understand if I just don’t show,” not this time of year. Those are statements of things that were possible when unions were stronger in the 1970s and had the lobbying strength to make sure that employers weren’t running busy times on overworked skeleton crews with no backup. Accrued time off, and especially paid accrued time off, simply doesn’t exist anymore for anyone on an hourly wage, so even if there was coverage, I still need to eat.

If you’re so upset your children and grandchildren can’t see you for the holidays, maybe you shouldn’t have sold them into wage slavery in the 1980s and every election since with your voting habits.