Bank holidays and Puritans
WEDNESDAY: As the staff room is still being redecorated, the walls having just turned a very feminine lilac, I am once again sitting in the Cutting Edge at a table refreshingly close to the espresso machine. (Ahhhh, inhale the aroma deeply, concentrate on that milk-steaming "Whooooossshhhhh!"…your mind is weightless…) Since I took the time yesterday to roast a red pepper I'm looking forward to my Wensleydale and roasted red pepper sandwich on a bakery-fresh granary bap, accompanied by a festival of summer fruits.
It's a short week because of another Bank Holiday weekend, that great British tradition. Bank Holiday weekends, those lovely 3-to-4-day breaks, occur whenever there is a Bank Holiday Monday, of which there are 8 throughout the year in England. On a Bank Holiday Monday not only are banks closed but also Royal Mail, post offices, schools, council offices, and many private sector employers, so most working people are off.
The Bank Holiday weekend that just passed is the last one until Christmas. As I work for a university I was off for 4 days. Unfortunately, as I am not paid for any hours I do not work, this 3-day work week consists of the longest possible days I am legally allowed to work at my crap job just so I don't starve. But don't get me started on that again…
When I was growing up in America both George Washington's birthday (22nd February) and Abe Lincoln's birthday (12th February) were school holidays, which made February a midway-between-Christmas-and-Easter holiday oasis. For some reason the government deleted Abe's birthday and turned George's into Presidents Day which, though it always falls on a Monday creating a long weekend, is still only 1 day instead of 2. Fortunately they finally added Martin Luther King Jr's birthday in January, so we weren't robbed for long.
When I was a little girl going to elementary school I envied my friends who went to Catholic schools. This was not only because their carnivals were much better that those of the nondenominational schools, but also because of all the saints' days they had many more holidays. Sure, they had to wear uniforms and the rest of us didn't; but I thought that was a small price to pay for more days away from school. If my school would have given me so many more days off per year, I would have happily worn a plaid pleated skirt with kneehighs and a beret every day. I mean, ordinary schoolkids wear uniforms in the UK and in a lot of other countries, and they've already started to in many parts of the US. So why not give ordinary schoolkids more holidays? Saints days, feast days, all of the Presidents' birthdays, International Marmite Day, whatever. The more the merrier.
The only advantage school-age and working Americans have over their British counterparts is Thanksgiving, a nice 4-day weekend which conveniently falls a month before Christmas. Poor Brits have to soldier through between Late Summer Holiday (Labour Day in America) and Christmas without a break, which seems a bit cruel.
But the Brits and other Europeans have the upper hand when it comes to annual leave (paid vacation in the US). When I run into a Brit who is dreaming about relocating to America, when I tell them about the annual leave sacrifice they'll have to make if they work there, it usually steers them back to reality like a good slap in the face. Whereas my British friends with fulltime jobs usually have between 4 and 6 weeks of annual leave per year, the average American has only 1 to 2 weeks. When I worked as a programmer for a large corporation, I felt so privileged to have 12 days a year instead of the 10 days most other technological corporations offered. My father ended up with 4 weeks, but that was after years and years of moving up the executive aerospace ladder. In stark contrast, when I got my first job in the UK, a one-year part-time contract, I was amazed to find not only did I have 11.5 days of annual leave but that I could take it right away if I so chose. In America one has to work for a year before they're entitled to use any annual leave. And a full time job is usually defined as 40 hours a week, not 35.
I blame all of this on the Puritans. If they hadn't come up with their Work Ethic, Americans would be reaping the same holiday benefits as their European friends. And everybody would be just that much happier.
