U.S. "Holiday" Days?

[kenobi65]

Fermilab.

Coolness!

 

[MonkeyDragon]

Working in a fast food restaurant, our only holiday off is Christmas Day. We close early on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, open late on New Year's Day. Thanksgiving is on a voluntary, paid overtime rate, day. We're open but it's voluntary to work that day. All other holidays, we're open.

I've got the same kind of deal at the coffee shop I work at. We have shortened hours on thanksgiving and christmas eve, off christmas day, and not quite as shortened hours new years eve and new years day. Otherwise for holidays we generally go on our Sunday schedule, which is 7am-10pm instead of 5:30am-10pm for weekdays. Although we have holiday hours for multiple holidays, we only earn holiday pay on Thanksgiving. This year the boss decided that she and one other person would work the whole (shortened) day. Since she's salary, it meant only having to pay one person overtime.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

A lot of companies give employees the week after Christmas off. Every place I've worked at does. We get a few less holidays during the year but that week off is awesome.

Wonder if that's a northern thing? I never knew any place that did that growing up (schools excepted, of course), but I've seen several since moving up here. Never got to work at one, though

 

[GlassJaw]

Wonder if that's a northern thing? I never knew any place that did that growing up (schools excepted, of course), but I've seen several since moving up here. Never got to work at one, though

Could be. The three major companies I've worked for all have done it (including defense contractor and private sector), and that's since 2000.

 

[diaglo]

Fermilab.

ya know whenever i see that i always flashback to French I in middle school.

Ferme la bouche.

as my teacher would say to the class as we chattered away in Franglais.

 

[Arnwyn]

US Federal holidays can be found here.

These are US holidays that are designated by Congress. Non-essential federal government offices are closed. Banks and schools are generally closed as well.

Thanks for the link, Pbartender!

On a related Wiki link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holidays_of_the_United_States), they pretty much gave the main answer I was looking for:

"Larger private businesses tend to observe most of the ten federal holidays, and the day after Thanksgiving. Smaller businesses often observe only the "big six" holidays (New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas)."

(Aside: I can't believe any business would give a week around Christmas off. Lunacy.)

 

[kenobi65]

(Aside: I can't believe any business would give a week around Christmas off. Lunacy.)

Well, in the case of my ad agency...

Even if our clients aren't closed during that week (and some are), it's pretty common that most of the people at our clients take that week off anyway. So, very little gets done. When I worked on "the client side", the office was always a ghost town during that week, and it would be a good week for filing and taking long lunches.

And, as most people here would take the week off, too, I think they decided to just close the office, which probably saves on some administrative costs.

The one caveat to that policy is that the account teams have to work with their individual clients to determine if they need any service during that week, and staff appropriately if needed. Anyone who has to work during that week is then allowed to take comp time in January instead.

 

[Pbartender]

Ferme la bouche.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

There, is that better?



I used to work as one of the crew in the Main Control Room, which is staffed 24 hours, 365 days a year, including holidays. Lab policy says that anyone scheduled to work a holiday gets the usual 8 hours holiday pay they would have gotten had they stayed home, plus double time for hours worked, in addition to any overtime or shift premiums. Thankgiving was a good holiday to work, especially if you were scheduled to work the 12-hour midnight shifts over the weekend... You'd earn, practically, a week's worth of pay in two days.

 

[diaglo]

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Fermi couldn't add.

Spoiler

Dr Enrico Fermi, Italian physicist. gifted and talented programs across the US do Fermi Math problems as exercises.

 

[kenobi65]

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

*snip*

I used to work as one of the crew in the Main Control Room

Total shot in the dark here, but does the name Mark Nylund ring a bell? (Brother of my first DM; he's worked there for many years, I believe in the electrical department.)