I have today, Monday the 21st, off of work.
My employer gives everyone 11 holidays per year. Some days are pretty much guaranteed: We always get Memorial Day and Thanksgiving Day off. Other days vary. If Independence Day lands on a weekday, for example, we get it off, but otherwise they apportion the holiday elsewhere during the year.
Lately they’ve been giving us off Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Which is today. To me, this seems like a waste. Like Presidents Day (which I will also receive as a paid holiday), there’s nothing to do today by way of the holiday itself. And while I am perfectly happy to get paid to not show up for work, I’d rather get paid to take off days when I have something going on, or on a day when there’s a pretty good chance I’ll have something going on.
Here are some days that I don’t receive as paid holidays, but which would be preferable to today…
-The Day after the Super Bowl
I’m not a football fan by any means, but since everyone of my fellow countrymen and women are football fans, I think a lot of them would like the day off to sober up. Me too, actually, since I often get invited to their Super Bowl parties where they assure me I can “just watch the commercials,” which, more often than not, is complete bullshit since no one shuts up to let me hear the commercials. Oh well. Free food.
-My Wedding Anniversary
Yeah, so…obviously this day varies from employee to employee (if they’re even married), but a few years back, my employer offered one holiday as a floating holiday. Essentially, it was another vacation day. I liked that.
-Halloween
Here’s a holiday, unlike MLK Day and Presidents Day, when I – and most of my employees – actually do something. How about a day to get ready for the evening’s trick-or-treating?
-Election Day
This one seems so obvious, I can’t believe more employers don’t give their employees this day off. Of course, I suppose workers are likely to vote different from the company owners, so it probably behooves the powers that be to not give their employees the day off.
Not that it matters much to me anymore, but I would vote to have the summer solstice off from work, especially for those north of about 40 degrees latitude. For northern folk, the 24 hour period with the most daylight is special. When I was working I always took that day off as a vacation day.
I worked on Monday because customers jump at the chance to get services done in their home on that day so that they do not have to take a vacation day. In the past, I have worked on every holiday on the calendar for that reason.
There was a discussion about Martin Luther King Day on the radio at AM1500 on Tuesday when Patrick Reusse was complaining about having a holiday in the middle of January when there is nothing that most Americans do that day. They don’t visit their relatives because they just did that already for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Others called in the radio program and mentioned that it was a token holiday for black people and that most white people resist giving any significance to it. Instead, MLK day is known for a good day to get a sale price on a mattress.
Reusse agreed with your idea that he would much rather have the day off after the Superbowl, he proposed calling it All-American Day. Since a large part of the country participates in watching the Superbowl it would benefit more people than a holiday honoring MLK. Plus, many people stay out that night and drink (much like New Year’s Eve) public safety would benefit by allowing people to sober up the next day before returning to work. The problem with replacing MLK Day with an All-American Day after the Superbowl is that the government would be lauding sports over civil rights. Many people misunderstand that because MLK was a black man the national holiday celebrating him is a “black holiday”. The civil rights movement was about people from every nation, color and creed being equal.
The discussion on the radio made me do some research on the holiday and I learned some things about MLK that I forgot about from high school. So, I suppose bringing some attention to the ongoing civil rights issue in the form of a national holiday did me some good.
I was going to parody your post with an appeal that “moments of silence” be held at night when most people are silent anyway, but I’m too sleepy for wit.
Thanks for all the comments!
Mike – Having the Solstice off would be a great idea. I could see the same predicament, though, where many employees wonder what the point it. So maybe it would be an ideal day to use a floating holiday.
Cory – When I worked in retail, I likd working on holidays, too. The store was very busy (so I made lots of $$$$), and I wasn’t doing anything else that day.
The thing about MLK Day, is that it can still be a holiday, even if students and employees aren’t automatically given the day off. I think we can honor people without staying home from school/work. When I was in elementary school, I had school on MLK Day, and there was always an all-school assembly talking about civil rights and showing us film strips of MLK’s life. In high school, I had the day off work, and I spent the day with my friends just hanging around.
I’d rather see a “Civil Rights Day” holiday, anyway. MLK did a lot of good things, but giving him a day makes it seem like he’s the only important person in the struggle for racial equality. It’d be better to have a blanket day to honor all the men and women. (A similar approach has happened with Presidents’ Day, which used to be Washington’s Birthday.)
David – I’ve never been quite clear on what “moments of silence” are supposed to accomplish. To me, they always seem like bones thrown to the people grieving, so that they don’t get upset that the rest of us are about to do something fun.