Behind The Mic With Joe Mathieu: Getting Paid To Shop

BOSTON (CBS) – You've got to love a country that sets aside a day just for fooling around at work. And by that I mean shopping.

Welcome to Cyber Monday when we get a free pass to ignore work and shop online. As opposed to every other Monday when we shop online at work anyway.

Indeed a recent Careerbuilder.com survey found that more than half of us will browse or buy something today in the office. About 10-percent plan to spend three-hours (or more!) looking for deals.

At work.

Maybe it's for the greater good. Because business on Black Friday left many store chains wanting with sales down about three-percent from last year, according to the National Retail Federation.

Much of the weekend business was done online as opposed to shopping at the store.

So it may be time to rethink this whole Black Friday thing.

Just last week we were talking about stores opening on Thanksgiving itself in states where that's allowed and it still didn't boost profits.

Stores will always do something to kick off the holiday shopping season and get people spending. But a couple of things could change. Retailers could finally embrace the fact that their stores are often just showrooms for online shopping.

And they may not try to open on Thanksgiving Day again. Sales were just not strong enough to justify the cost of staffing up on a holiday.

Besides, who would want to go to a store when your boss will pay you to shop at work?

Follow Joe on Twitter @joemathieuwbz

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