Being Grateful for Working on Thanksgiving Day
It is easy to feel put out when a person has to work on Thanksgiving. After all, it is a time to enjoy a good feast with family and friends, to visit and to renew ties. There might be a tendency to feel less than thankful when work takes the person away from the special time. It can be helpful, though, to focus on what a working person has to be thankful for.
Work
One of the most obvious things to be thankful for is work. It may not be a job a person really wants to do, and perhaps the working conditions aren't the best. However, the person does have a job. That is something thatmany peoplecan't say, even in good economic times. Even fewer have employment when the economy is weak. People can start out by being thankful that they have the opportunity to earn money.
An excellent example is provided by a woman named Sonja. She had been a waitress for many years and was great at her profession. Fast, courteous and with plenty of seniority, she actually volunteered to work on Thanksgiving Day. It was her way of giving thanks. She helped the people who would come in to the restaurant to eat, while also allowing a coworker to have time off to be with their family. As she put it, "I believe that the more thankful you are, the more you should do to show it and to help others to be thankful too. If it wasn't for my job, I'd own nothing and couldn't make a living, so you'd better believe that I'm thankful for the work."
Health
Someone who works on Thanksgiving is in good enough health to do the job, in all likelihood. This gives something more to be thankful for. Many people will spend their Thanksgiving in the hospital for a variety of reasons. Except for those people actually working at the hospital to render aid, these people would most likely be able to think of dozens of places they'd rather be.
If the worker takes time to think about this, they might be thankful that they are working, and are healthy enough to be able to do so, instead of being in a position where their health prevented it.
Helping
Being thankful is more than just saying, "Thank you." It literally means 'to be full of thanks'. It isn't a stretch to think of a person who is full of thanks as one who would like to help others as much as possible. Sonja did it by volunteering to work, in order to help patrons and fellow workers as her way of showing her thanks.
Many professions are almost ready made to allow a worker to think of their service in the same way. Store personnel, emergency workers, firemen, truckers, railroad workers, airline workers and so forth are just a few that can be mentioned. They can think of their work as giving back to others and helping them. The opportunity to be able to help others is a great thing to be thankful for.
Other
Giving thanks isn't contingent on having the entire day off. Otherwise, people would have nothing to be thankful for on any day they worked. This means that all the things they would normally give thanks for, still apply. The person can still have a feast, just not at the same time they might have normally planned it. Friends and family, pets and a place to live, these are all things to give thanks for, whether the person is working on Thanksgiving day or not. In fact, about the only thing that isn't cause for giving thanks is having a full day off, and even then, most people will have at least the majority of the day when they aren't working.
Thanksgiving day isn't something that should be reserved for one day a year, so everyday should be a thanks giving day.
