Monday, July 2, 2012
ROLL THE STONE AWAY, LET THE GUILTY PAY: So how, exactly, is the world handling this unfortunate midweek Fourth of July? If the holiday were any other day of the week, America would know what days to take off work, but this? It suggests the wisdom of my dad's longtime suggestion that we just declare the first Monday in July "Independence Day" as a legal holiday, but I'd hate to give up the four-day weekends we often get as a freedom bonus.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Speaking of how we're handling things, is there going to be a Wire Wednesday post this week?
ReplyDeleteIf we're going to assign it a day, the first Friday in July might be a better suggestion. 4th of July is about fireworks, which require darkness. In summer, especially in some parts of the country, darkness comes very late. Put the holiday on Friday and have the fireworks that night with a weekend of celebrations to follow.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I prefer celebrating holidays on the actual day. I still don't understand how July 4 got to be the day, but that's what we're all going with, so we'll be going with two two-day blocks of work this week in my office.
My last term at Cal, I had the opposite problem -- namely, classes Tuesday nights and all day Wednesday. The six-day weekend really was a thing of beauty.
ReplyDeleteI think I'll bump it to Thursday.
ReplyDeleteI recall when I worked in corporate and the 4th was on a Wednesday. Everyone wanted off Thursday and Friday. It got a bit ugly, with seniority prevailing.
ReplyDeleteI recall when I worked in corporate and the 4th was on a Wednesday. Everyone wanted off Thursday and Friday. It got a bit ugly, with seniority prevailing.
ReplyDeleteI recall when I worked in corporate and the 4th was on a Wednesday. Everyone wanted off Thursday and Friday. It got a bit ugly, with seniority prevailing.
ReplyDeleteI recall when I worked in corporate and the 4th was on a Wednesday. Everyone wanted off Thursday and Friday. It got a bit ugly, with seniority prevailing.
ReplyDeleteI recall when I worked in corporate and the 4th was on a Wednesday. Everyone wanted off Thursday and Friday. It got a bit ugly, with seniority prevailing.
ReplyDeleteI recall when I worked in corporate and the 4th was on a Wednesday. Everyone wanted off Thursday and Friday. It got a bit ugly, with seniority prevailing.
ReplyDeleteI recall when I worked in corporate and the 4th was on a Wednesday. Everyone wanted off Thursday and Friday. It got a bit ugly, with seniority prevailing.
ReplyDeleteI recall when I worked in corporate and the 4th was on a Wednesday. Everyone wanted off Thursday and Friday. It got a bit ugly, with seniority prevailing.
ReplyDeleteI recall when I worked in corporate and the 4th was on a Wednesday. Everyone wanted off Thursday and Friday. It got a bit ugly, with seniority prevailing.
ReplyDeleteI recall when I worked in corporate and the 4th was on a Wednesday. Everyone wanted off Thursday and Friday. It got a bit ugly, with seniority prevailing.
ReplyDeleteI recall when I worked in corporate and the 4th was on a Wednesday. Everyone wanted off Thursday and Friday. It got a bit ugly, with seniority prevailing.
ReplyDeleteI recall when I worked in corporate and the 4th was on a Wednesday. Everyone wanted off Thursday and Friday. It got a bit ugly, with seniority prevailing.
ReplyDeleteI'm taking Thursday and Friday off and my impression is that a lot of my co-workers are doing the same. Almost all of my co-workers are here today -- I'm surprised.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry! Please delete all of the above - many technical errors here due to power outages I guess.
ReplyDeleteI kept seeing people talk about "the long weekend" on Twitter and I was jealous - to get any kind of long weekend out of this holiday I'd have to use vacation days, which I'd like to save for something more fun than "sit in house and avoid triple digit heat."
ReplyDeleteA few years back, the state took away our Memorial Day holiday so that we'd have Christmas Eve off. I was livid. (The university closes entirely from Christmas to New Year's, so that meant one extra day on an already long holiday. No Memorial Day meant no paid holiday that year from MLK Day til July 4. Ridiculous.)
(That was me.)
ReplyDeleteI'm taking vacation days -- I need it, even if it is for a mini-staycation. For me, the hard part was deciding whether I was going to use them on Monday and Tuesday or on Thursday or Friday.
ReplyDeleteNo Memorial Day? That's BS! As a state employee here, we get all the normal holidays, plus Confederate Memorial Day (May 10th) and an extra day around Christmas (we get Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Day After Christmas off.)
Here in the DC area, the question is further complicated by the fact that lots of people still have no power after Friday night's megastorm. This means that many camps are closed because they have no power, no water, or both (if your power is out, your pool can't be kept clean, so many public pools are closed too). So, lots of people are now home with kids, or bringing the kids to the office to enjoy some air conditioning.
ReplyDeleteMy bet is that most people in my office are working, but treating the whole week as a bit of a "light" period if workload allows.
As a government employee, I get July 4th off, but would have to take off any other days as leave, regardless of whether July 4th is a Wednesday or another weekday. The only real difference is that one would have to take two days of leave to create a long weekend with July 4th this year, instead of only one.
ReplyDeleteYes, my office is only closed Wednesday, but I fully expect the place to be empty by 2-3 PM tomorrow (contemplating an early movie--likely either Moonrise Kingdom or Spider-Man), and a lot of folks have signaled that they're taking Thursday or Friday partially or fully off.
ReplyDeleteJuly 4th is my birthday so lets keep it as it is. It is neat to always have the day off.
ReplyDeleteWe only get Wednesday off and have to use vacation for any other days, but I annually go to Palm Springs with some friends for the 4th...having it on a Wednesday resulted in us all taking Tuesday, Thursday and Friday off, so I'm looking forward to 5 blissful days of pool-time, reading and cocktails.
ReplyDeleteI predict that will happen at my fiancee's office.
ReplyDeleteyes. five day weekend is the obvious solution. if enough of us do it, everyone will give up on today and tomorrow as well. the result: NINE DAY WEEKEND
ReplyDeleteI took Thursday and Friday as vacation, but I had already planned to take the next two weeks AND I have extra time this year for paternity leave, so a bit of a special year. Coming in tomorrow, but expect relatively light/early day so bringing kids to office.
ReplyDeleteNo Memorial Day is total BS, but this is maybe worse -- when my company (a global specialty retail clothing company based in San Francisco, hint hint) got a new, Canadian CEO, one of his first acts was to jettison the official Friday-after-Thanksgiving holiday for office workers (so now you had to come in to work, hung over and unable to fit into anything but your fat pants, while your inlaws went through all your cabinets and your kids watched TV in their pajamas all day, unless you had both the PTO and the seniority to use it). The very next year, he and his exec team decreed our stores would be open ON THANKSGIVING. What a fucking crock. The only sacred day on the calendar in America -- way to chase a couple of bucks and ruin people's lives, dude.
ReplyDeleteOur day after Thanksgiving is messed up here too - the University is closed, but the library isn't. So, a handful of employees draw the short straw every year and have to work. And if you're like me, and salaried, you don't get time-and-a-half holiday pay nor do you officially get a compensatory day off. (Unofficially, our department head will turn a blind eye to taking a day off either the week before or the week after.)
ReplyDeleteI took next week as my vacation, so no vacation days for me this week - just that weird Wednesday off. The day before a holiday weekend my office usually empties out a bit early - an unofficial early closing - but with this being Tuesday (and my boss just back from her vacation and on fire to get things done), I doubt that will happen.
ReplyDeleteI'd usually think about heading out to mom's house on Long Island for the 4th, but with it being mid-week and having to work the next day, I just don't think it's worth fighting the traffic. So we're staying in town, likely going to the movies and possibly the fireworks.
I'm staycationing today and tomorrow for a nice long 5-day weekend (Monday-Tuesday worked better for work than Thursday-Friday)
ReplyDeleteI was a little bummed about not having a long weekend, but when I woke up this morning and realized I only have two days of work, then two more and then the weekend? Yeah, I'm OK with having Wednesday off.
ReplyDeleteAs for plans, I told my friends I have plans with family and told my family I have plans with friends. But really... I'm going to celebrate by staying home, sleeping in, cleaning my apartment and reading. Then I'm going to bed early. (BTW, the fact that I've conspired to spend a national holiday sleeping, cleaning and lounging on my couch w/a book AND that I'm looking forward to it just reinforces my theory that I'm getting old. Fortunately, I'm too tired to care.)
This is a debate, seriously? You're off on Wednesday and if you want another day off take a vacation day.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, a happy Canada Day yesterday to all our northern neighbors in Toronto, Ottowa and Iron Mountain!
I took vacation days for today and tomorrow, but only because my parents are in town. I wouldn't mind being in the office, really--nobody's around, and it's definitely a "long lunch" kind of atmosphere. Plus, the two days on, one day off, two days on, two days off works.
ReplyDeletePlan-wise, I'm spending the evening volunteering at one of the Smithsonians, and seeing the fireworks from the roof. Should be exciting!
Wednesday off and would have to use vacation days, like most folks here.
ReplyDeleteWere you a clue in yesterday's NYT crossword? I can't remember.
ReplyDeleteSpaceboy 1 inexplicably has camp on the 4th. ??? Every other camp in the area (country?) is closed. How bitter are those college student counselors going to be? And poor Spaceboy is forced to choose between his loyalty to his counselors and his love for riding on a float in the parade. I wish they would do us all a favor and cancel it.
ReplyDeletejuly 4, 1776 was the date the second continental congress adopteded the declaration of independence. hence, independence day.
ReplyDeleteI have to work on the 4th. I have worked for the same company for 13 summers now, so I haven't had a non-weekend 4th off in seemingly forever. We will likely close early as we have no clients in the afternoon. But still. I'm tired of working on the 4th.
ReplyDeleteRe: the subject line - I always thought it was "throw the stone away"...the real lyric makes much more sense. Thanks for clearing that up for me. (And FTR: half day Tues, day off Wed.)
ReplyDeleteAs a freelancer, I would likely have had to work Wednesday. No work, no pay, so unless the company was closing for the day, I'd have worked. Making basic cable TV shows is obviously that important.
ReplyDeleteApparently, this holiday is throwing off tourism, too.
ReplyDeleteI took off today and tomorrow, as I start a new job on Thursday. Not great timing, but I'm staying at my same employer, so they didn't care.
My company only has Wednesday off but, based on last year, we may be sent home sometime after noon tomorrow. Last year our CEO sent out an e-mail with links to various versions of the Star Spangled Banner and suggested that we take the afternoon off and get in the 4th of July mood by choosing our favorite version.
ReplyDeleteOfficially, my new employer is closing at 4pm today, firm-wide. Unofficially, I imagine it'll be a ghost town in my branch office by then. Being the new guy, I'm not rocking the boat in terms of taking vacation time - I'll be back in Thursday and Friday.
ReplyDeletethanks!!!
ReplyDeleteWhich is ironic, since at least most scripted basic cable shows are taking this week off entirely. (USA and ABC Family are, though TNT is not.)
ReplyDeleteI'll be at work tomorrow, as well as the other 6 days this week (sigh) since my hospital just went to a 14-days-in-a-row schedule. I am heroically resisting the temptation to make a rude gesture in everyone's general direction.
ReplyDelete