The holiday hustle

Sometimes people can be so ridiculous.  The 4th of July is coming up and people are already plotting and planning on how to get the most of a single day off.

They shuffle extra days off, doctor’s visits, vacations, and any good excuse to stretch out a three-day weekend into five or six days.  I’ve already had to reschedule phone conferences, projects, and have had to move quickly to get proposals out to people before they leave.

I have to say that some people really have some gall and don’t really care what this does to co-workers and colleagues that suddenly have their work lives altered to suit their needs.

Things really get bad around the end of the year with Christmas and New Year’s.  In these cases I’ve known companies to shutter for up to 2 weeks at a time.  Granted, the holiday period is a traditionally dead time of the year business wise.  Budgets have already been spent, new budgets don’t kick in till January and there seems to be a collective expectation that no one else is doing anything so why should we?

But wouldn’t it be better if instead of trying to make every short holiday longer why not cancel holidays and just give people more days off during the year.  Maybe instead of 2 weeks off during the year, why not 21 days to do with as you want.  Break it up into 3 one week vacations.  Plan ahead and do all 3 weeks at once.  Take the time off when it suits you instead being forced by convention to take certain days off.

I think if you let workers have more control over their time that they will reward you with being more productive during the time that they are there.

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