That is unless you work for a company that doesn't close on the holidays. I woke up early Thanksgiving morning and was about to make my lunch. I decide that since it was Thanksgiving I would just treat myself to dinner that day rather than taking my usual meat and cheese sandwich. I wasn't really concerned about going to work on Thanksgiving because I work at a call center for a financial firm and who would be calling in about their investments on Thanksgiving?


Once I was at work I got ready to sit around all day and read a book since nobody was going to call. I logged onto my phone, got out my book, and proceeded to take one call after another for the remainder of the day. Call after call people were placing trades and complaining about this or that. One man called in and said, "why can't I get a quote on the NASDAQ"? I told him that it was closed. "Why in the world is it closed"? "It's Thanksgiving", I told him. "Well, I guess I had better go and buy a turkey", he said.

Unbelievable! I did mention that Thanksgiving is a day to get together with your family. One call I received was a conference call from an entire family that was sitting around at dinner talking about their accounts and decided to call and place some trades.

Now let's get back to treating myself to dinner. At lunch time I went out to my car and decided to drive around and see what my options were. I didn't really have high expectations. I was just looking for something fast. McDonalds, Wendy's, Taco Bell, and Burger King: all closed. Not even restaurants were open. Everything was closed. I drove back to work wondering what I was going to do and then I passed a 7-11. I went into the store to see what I could do and the best that I could find was a "Big Bomb Burrito". It was a large burrito filled with beans and cheese. I took it back to work, warmed it up, and just about threw up as I gagged down my Thanksgiving feast.


After lunch I was back to the phones. After another 6 hours of calls I was ready to go home and forget the whole day. I logged off of my phone and all I had left to do was to print off my list of trades that I had placed. Then I would be ready to go home. I printed my log, went over to the printer (about 50 feet away), and it didn't print. I went back to my computer and their was an error on my screen. I asked the other guys that I work with if they had any problems printing their log. They all said no and went home. I tried it again a couple of times. I even tried printing to a different printer. Nothing. You might be thinking why didn't you just print it off another day or get you manager to help you. By this time I was the only person left on the entire floor. There were no managers wandering around at 8 PM on Thanksgiving night and I lose my job if I don't print off my trade log each day. I was finally able to print it off on another computer. My day was finally over and for that I was very thankful.