February 13, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Happy President's Day 2009
February 16, 2009 at 4:59 am
I am of course working, I do not live in usa and today is no holiday.
But I've heard that usa people only have 2 weeks semester / year, if that is true, I hope you enjoy this holiday.
February 16, 2009 at 8:03 am
Believe it or not, I am a state of Louisiana (Department of ED!) programmer, and this is not a Holiday for us either!
The state holidays here include Martin Luther King Day and Mardi Gras, of course. 🙁 I would prefer to celebrate our nation's history myself. My son lives with my ex-husband in Arkansas, and he has today off. What a wacky world.
February 16, 2009 at 9:31 am
Actually, there is no such thing as Presidents/President's/Presidents' Day. The official designation of the holiday under federal statute is Washington's Birthday. It is a federal holiday. Contrary to popular opinion, federal holidays have no status with states. Each state enacts its own holiday calendar.
February 16, 2009 at 9:42 am
Thanks, Barry. It seems that schools here have started calling it President's Day, celebrating both Washington and Lincoln, but it's listed as Washington's Birthday in the federal calendar. 🙁
The holiday in the US traditionally has been 2 weeks with 5 or so sick days. Many companies have gone to a PTO, Paid Time Off, system where you get 3 weeks that's for sick and vacation. Usually over time you earn more and I've seen people getting up to 5 or 6 weeks total after 10-15 years work.
I had a great weekend in the mountains, and I'm somewhat off today :). Still a little work to do, but a good chance to recharge a bit.
February 16, 2009 at 9:55 am
Here in Florida, we don't get it off. They swapped it for MLK Day years back to keep the number of holidays for state workers consistent. All the retailers are calling it Presidents Day for their sales. The ironic thing is when the date was last fixed at the 3rd Monday in Feb, they guaranteed it could never fall on Washington's actual birthday (Feb 22).
February 16, 2009 at 10:00 am
That make UK holidays seem generous.
My package, which I don't think is unusual, is to get 25 days off per year plus 8 public holidays (New Year, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Early Spring Holiday, Late Spring Bank Holiday, Summer Bank Holiday, Christmas and Boxing Day) plus sick days. People can self-certify up to 3 consecutive days sick, but, obviously, HR keep track and will query excessive cases of "throwing a sickie".
After 5 years, I'd get 26 days off per year.
Derek
February 16, 2009 at 10:12 am
I work for the state of Florida (Dept of Education). I get 9 paid holidays: New Years, Martin Luther King's Birthday, Memorial Day (last Monday in May), July 4th, Labor Day (1st Monday in Sept), Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving (Thr & Fri), and Christmas. Because I'm in a senior technical position I also get 176 hours (22 days) of vacation, 1 Personal Day, and 13 days of sick leave per year. State pay sucks but the benefits are decent. I can roll over my vacation and sick leave from year to year as well.
February 16, 2009 at 10:16 am
I get the day off from the usual log-jam of my commute, since myself and 11 other people (judging by the traffic count on I-93 this morning) are the only ones working the holiday.
February 19, 2009 at 10:21 am
I'm from the UK, so it's just like any other day to me, so no holiday. On the other hand, I didn't know the US has so few bank holidays, even though, (I believe), a lot of other EU countries have more than the UK.
The main thing that annoys me about UK bank holidays is that there's a huge gap between them in the autumn, ('fall' for any US readers), where we don't have any for two months, or so. Yet there's pretty much one a month throughout the rest of the year. That, and we don't have any bank hols for the English Saint, (whose name escapes me right now).
Can I just point out that, (to the best of my knowledge, as I don't have time to verify this), Washington wasn't the first president ever. He was the first president of a united america. Though I don't remember who actually was the very first.
February 19, 2009 at 12:20 pm
George Washington was, in fact, the first president of a country. Prior to that the term president was used for the presiding officer of an organization such as a university or.professional society
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