When did Thanksgiving become the new “Black Friday?”

As anyone who has worked in the service and retail industry during the holidays can tell you, “Black Friday” is the worst day of the year. No substitutes and no runner ups. It is, hands down, the most hellish day of the year when it comes to the volume of angry, impatient shoppers.

For those who are blissfully unaware of what “Black Friday” is, count yourselves lucky. Typically associated with the Friday immediately following Thanksgiving, “Black Friday” marks the beginning of the Christmas rush. The majority of items throughout stores will be on sale, and if they’re not then there will simply be more of them for customers to scoop up in their mad dash looking for discounts and gifts.

As the years have gone by we see malls, such as Tanforan and Serramonte, opting for much earlier business hours in order to accommodate for this crazed tidal wave of holiday shoppers. Malls would even open their doors at midnight on “Black Friday” to appease the throngs of people they expected to be waiting outside their doors.

This is, of course, for those scenarios where we see men and women on the evening news camping out in tents with kerosene lamps and heaters outside of Fry’s Electronics and Best Buy in the hopes of buying their electronic gifts at a huge discount.

If this midnight opening time wasn’t enough, apparently Thanksgiving is no longer a day for retail and service employees to take a break. By now we’ve all seen the ads bragging about how various malls and outlets will be opening their doors at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day in order to give customers an early start to their “Black Friday” loss of sanity. So, not only are we expecting mall employees to work on Thanksgiving, but we are also expecting them to be at work well before 6 a.m. to prepare for this universally accepted day of madness.

Thankfully this has not fallen on deaf ears as numerous petitions are making the rounds calling for a boycott of these malls in lieu of their decision to open at such an early hour. Will it make a difference in the long run? Chances are it won’t, but it is the thought that counts most in this situation. Rather than sitting back and watching as hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women are forced up during the pre-dawn hours to go to work on a national holiday, there is a call to action.

Make a point to tell those around you, your friends and your family, of what these malls are doing. Spread the word. Boycott “Black Friday.”