When I was a student at PLU in Tacoma, I waited tables at the Denny's restaurant close to downtown. At the time, I worked weekends, all weekend long. Tips were great - I made more in one 8-hour shift than my entire work-study paycheck any given month. All my friends had crazy-hour jobs along with classes so none of us paid much attention to our social or family lives. I didn't mind Sunday afternoons.
However, one of my coworkers, a married woman with two school-age kids, did mind. As she explained to me,Sunday was the only day that the rest of her family was together at home. She felt sad whenever she had to miss it. But Sundays 12:00 - 5:00 were often the busiest time of day so she was invariably called in.
One reason why Sunday afternoons were so frantic was because at noon, a small army of people from the Baptist church across the street would flock in for lunch. Since most conservative churches have strict injunctions against working on Sunday, I sometimes wondered if our customers realized that eating out made it necessary for other people to work Sundays.
In western societies, Sunday is the day when the greatest number of people have the day off. Kids aren't in school and businesses with traditional office hours are closed. For people like my Denny's coworker, Sunday wasn't a religious day but it was the only day her family could be together and could gather with friends and relatives. Other cultures have a different traditional day off; the point is that everyone gets a weekly holiday together.
I've been remembering my Denny's friend during the last two weeks as I've tried to find a time when a women's circle I'm part of can meet. One woman's workplace recently went from a 6-days-a-week schedule to being open all 7 days. Her schedule has changed, and now there doesn't seem to be a time when we can all get together. Her workplace doesn't provide an urgent service; it's not a hospital, fire or police station, so it's not open out of strict necessity. But since customers requested Sunday hours, she has to be there.
The protests at Target stores this past Thanksgiving by staff who had to leave family celebrations early in order to be at work by 11 pm on Thanksgiving Day are an extreme example of opportunity for business trumping relationships. I know a few people who were stuck in that situation as well. I don't blame them for being upset.
It's probably impossible to tell exactly how a 365-24-7 economy affects our social networks, but I've known many people who've been adversely affected by it. This has made me pay close attention to my own consumer habits: do I really need to run out and buy that missing ingredient on Thanksgiving Day, or is it just possible that the party will be fine without that particular dish? How many of the 365-24-7 store openings are really because people can't shop at any other time, and how many are simply because we've lost the planning skills it would take to eliminate last-minute errands?
It's good to remind myself once in awhile that I help determine the values that run our collective economy.
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