This is coming a day late, but I assure you it was written on Martin Luther King Jr. Day….. the federal holiday. Maybe today, my opinion won’t sound so off the wall. I really don’t have a problem with the government declaring more and more federal holidays (we haven’t seen any new ones in a while). Why are federal holidays worth my gripe today? Because I don’t think many people get to celebrate them.
This area isn't busy? It's a Federal Holiday!
Driving to work on Jan. 16th if you were on the road during “rush hour” like I was you also probably noticed the lack of people trying to go anywhere especially to work. It was probably magnified for me driving through downtown St. Paul on I 94/35 which mainly consists of government workers on most days.
In my line of work, most of what we do has a tendency to cater to the government which has 0 people in attendance today. Heck, I think more and more businesses are dependent on the government being open to continue work especially in the construction industry with more stringent inspections and standards. If they get the day off and still get paid our tax money like they were at work shouldn’t we?
Do you think federal holidays should be more inclusive requiring workers get the day off whether or not they work for the government or schools? Do we have too many federal holidays for that to work? Are you one of the workers that gets to enjoy federal holidays from your cubical? Let me know.
I work in the private sector and I had yesterday off.
Then you must work for a pretty great workplace. I am pretty much the only person I know of that had to work yesterday.
Sucks to be you
I work for a private business, on a contract with the federal government. I did not have Monday off.
I don’t think there should be more holidays, people should continue working so we are productive. Some are OK; more are not needed.
Jason,
I don’t need to work more days to be more productive. In fact, I’m generally doing about 1/10th of what I could because I’m very good at what I do.
and I am able to get the work done quickly, efficiently and correctly and there just isn’t anything to fill that time with.
You are right, when I mentioned productivity I really should have said “output”. Of course, I want to increase both on an aggregate level.
That said, it sounds like more time is not what you need, Nate – it sounds like you need to have a work-stream that delivers you tasks more rapidly so that you have higher utilization.
Once you get to a higher utilization, then more time then would increase your output. And at that point, any methods to increase your productivity would increase your output even further.