Good evening one and all! Ive got a lot to say tonight, so hold on. First, I hope everyone had a lovely day. If not, I hope tomorrow is a much better day. I am perplexed tonight. I have worked for Cracker Barrel for over 25 years. Its been a very good journey thus far, and I have no regrets. Ive had my disagreements with corporate before but all in all it has been of little consequence..nothing major. But today I and my fellow coworkers discovered we would be having no Christmas party. No Christmas party. Let that sink in for a minute. 25 years and weve had a Christmas party every single year and many more before that. It has always been a cherished time for lots of us. I havent attended all of them, but I know how important they are. We like to think of ourselves as a large family, extremely diverse and sometimes dysfunctional, but family nonetheless. And Christmas is all about family. We would choose a theme for the party (and weve had some wild and crazy ones). People would donate their time to organize and help facilitate the event. Lots of food would be cooked, and we would feast! Games would be played, many aimed at the many children brought in by our families. Santa would be there for pictures and Christmas lists. There would be fellowship and entertainment, sometimes even karaoke. The key word here is fellowship. We got to see our friends with their families and it brought everybody closer. We would top the night with awards. There would be a lot of crazy superlative awards and always worked up to the Employee of the Year. Now, according to what I can find out, this subject was breeched by a survey we took (and take every year) earlier in the year. The survey is a critique of corporate relations to each employee, as well as local management. I was informed that some specific complaints about the Christmas party were brought up. Then I heard it was brought to a vote (implied voting by employees) resulting in the cancellation of the Christmas party in favor of a corporate summer barbecue. So Ive been trying to figure out just who voted. I didnt get asked as did no one from my store. Is this the same people that systematically voted away employee benefits through the years? Ive never been asked to vote on anything regarding benefits, but were always assured that our employees did the voting. In light of a nationwide assault on Christmas, I hope this decision wasnt influenced by politics. It is upsetting. This company espouses tradition and traditional values. It has been very successful for them over the 45 years theyve been in business. Id hate to see that compromised. I also think a good compromise would be to let each store decide for itself which occasion it would prefer to congregate. I have proposed this to corporate and am currently waiting for a response. Stay tuned for updates.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 00:55:36 +0000