Amount of official American holidays?

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I'm having a small argument with my father about the amount of official holidays Americans have. With official holidays I mean holidays on which Americans don't have to work (aka free days).

So, to all Yanks, how much free holidays do you have?
 
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The only Yanks are in New York....bastages.

The number varies depending on what religion you're a part of, but here's the standard:

http://www.smart.net/~mmontes/ushols.html

Things like flag day obviously aren't important.
 
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11-13 of those would affect the working schedule as far as I know. Armed forces day is on a Saturday and most people don't work then, so that doesn't really count. Martin Luther King Jr. Day isn't a federal holiday, so it's up to bossman/lady, Flag Day isn't really a holiday for anyone, and I'm not sure if we get Washington's B-day off.

Thats the gist of it.
 
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Ok, that means I was right :)

We Belgians "only" have 10 official holidays with affected working schedules. My father said that Americans have less, so we shouldn't complain, so I told him that they have more.

Time to go and slap my dad o/
 
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Do people actually get religious holidays off? I dunno, it wouldn't seem practical to award special days to people based on religion. What do Agnostics and Athiests get in compromise? Nothing?

That would create for a possibly hostile workplace...
 
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Do people actually get religious holidays off? I dunno, it wouldn't seem practical to award special days to people based on religion. What do Agnostics and Athiests get in compromise? Nothing?

That would create for a possibly hostile workplace...
All religions are respected and since we have to celebrate CHRISTIAN holidays anyone who is anything else should have their holy days off as well. It's only fair. We've been doing this for a long time. Trust us on this. Any hostility between employees is strictly personal.

Bolteh, I think we work more hours though. We work 40 hours a week + overtime (which a lot of people seem to need). If not, then goddamn, you're lucky. I'm actually thinking about moving to Italy just so I can relax.
 
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You should move to Italy too D:
 
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As far as I know, they also have 8h days, but they just take like 3h breaks and work 3h longer in the evening?
 
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If that's what it is, that's just fine. I'm not even Italian. I just like that everyone there is so relaxed. Over here, everyone lives to work instead of working to live. It's insane. I can't live like that.

Wealth offers a degree of freedom, but the striving and working for wealth is what enslaves us =/.
 
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Death knows no rest D:

Do the benefits make up for that?
 
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Not really. But theres alot of opportunity for overtime, so thats kinda good. (Though my department did just get a 3% raise =p)
 
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Sandstorm said:
Do people actually get religious holidays off? I dunno, it wouldn't seem practical to award special days to people based on religion.
Areas that have a dense population of a certain religion or group tend to get the "optional" holidays off. A big asian community may get some asian holidays off that other communities wouldn't, just as a big Jewish community may get some Jewish holidays off as well.
Sandstorm said:
What do Agnostics and Athiests get in compromise? Nothing?
If they live in a community such as I mentioned before, they would also get the day off.
 
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Bolteh, we may have more legal holdiays, but only the government shuts down for them. Realistically, the major holidays which shut down major companies are limited, doubly so for retail or service industry jobs.

New Year's Day
Easter
Memorial Day
4th of July
Labor Day
Thanksgiving
Christmas (Some companies observe Day and Eve, most only Day)

That makes 7, or 8, depending on the company, that will actually shut down businesses. My job recognizes 8, and gives and additional "assignable holiday" so we can have a long weekend for one of them.
 
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Do people actually get religious holidays off? I dunno, it wouldn't seem practical to award special days to people based on religion. What do Agnostics and Athiests get in compromise? Nothing?

That would create for a possibly hostile workplace...
Yes, as mentioned before, this has been the case for a LONG time. There are so many different Winter holidays though (Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanza, etc.) that schools are usually closed for weeks, and adults (though the actual days are just the Holiday off) will typically take perhaps a week off for the holiday. Easter is also recognized, but schools do not close for long unless it falls in the same time as Spring Break.

The fact is that so many people practise these Holidays and will take those days off regardless of whether the said day is recognized by the state that in the end you'd just have a work day in which 75% of your staff is absent. In that knowledge, it's better to close businesses and take a day off than to run the business on fumes and essentially put the market in the red.

Aethiests and agnostics do not practice such Holidays, and that's fine. But it also means that there is no day and no reason for them to celebrate in such a manner. They should just enjoy the swag of having the day off and not complain about religion, whether or not they likely consider it a "primitive, primevil and illogical" sort of thing, which often gives them their unreasonably prickly demeanor when they take issue with the majoritive religious.

And unless you're talking about aethiests, I see no reason for there to be hostility in the workplace due to religious holidays. Christians don't take issue with Hannukah, and the Jewish don't take issue with Christmas. We coexist peacefully and respectfully acknowledge each other. It just works.
 
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Ok, that means I was right :)

We Belgians "only" have 10 official holidays with affected working schedules. My father said that Americans have less, so we shouldn't complain, so I told him that they have more.

Time to go and slap my dad o/
Take into account also, that we have no laws prohibiting a retail store for being open 24/7. I'm told Germany and a lot of more socialist-like European countries still have many of these laws, in which a place like Wal-Mart can only stay open until 6pm, or stores can't be open on Sunday. Do those still exist? Come on, how am I supposed to buy a machete for 3 bucks at 3 AM when I need to? How do you guys do it?
 
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Do people actually get religious holidays off? I dunno, it wouldn't seem practical to award special days to people based on religion. What do Agnostics and Athiests get in compromise? Nothing?

That would create for a possibly hostile workplace...
Yeah I agree. Let's celebrate christmas but not hanaka (or how ever the **** you spell it, i'm sure Pain will correct me :p) or kwanza for that matter.
 

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