12/20/02: Bonus Holiday Arrives

The decision to give non-emergency federal workers a half day off on Tuesday, December 24th, comes as no surprise (now that’s easy to say) to people who know George W. Bush. A White House official said that when he was a businessman in Texas he was always “considerate about things like that around holidays.”

What kept official Washington guessing was the fact that Christmas this year falls on a Wednesday. It was one thing to give feds a full day off last year when Christmas fell on Tuesday. But mid-week holidays are different.

In fact the last time government workers got time off, when Christmas Eve was on a Tuesday, was December 24, 1957. That’s a long time ago. Dwight D. Eisenhower was President, a loaf of bread cost a quarter, gasoline was 30 cents a gallon and we all were a lot slimmer.

While some people will probably grumble that they didn’t get the full day off, instead of a half day, the fact remains this is a bonus. Letting feds go, especially in the metro Washington area, is a big deal. It has an impact on traffic patterns, rush hour schedules for public transportation like bus, subway and van pools). And it puts pressure on private sector employers too.

The political downside of giving feds time off for any reason is that many private sector types don’t get the same break. The message is if-you-want-Tuesday-off-take vacation! That’s for those people who have a job, of course.

But outside of anti-government militia groups, who see everything (including the weather) as a government plot, letting feds have extra time off is probably a wash—maybe a plus.

We’ve had two weather events in Washington this month that, in earlier times, would have resulted in time off. Instead feds were told to drive carefully, but to report for duty. It played well in Peoria. I was there.

Actually I was in New Orleans during the first week in December east coast snowstorm. The weather news led both the national and local news, at least where I was. All stations had reporters or anchors doing stand-up shots on the mall, with the U.S. Capitol building in the background. All made the point that the DC area got about six inches of snow and the government DID NOT shutdown. I think that surprised and pleased a lot of people outside Washington. And it denied ammunition to late night talk show hosts who always take a crack at the government and feds when there is a weather shutdown here.

So it’s possible that the decision to hang tough earlier this month set the stage for the half day holiday next Tuesday.

And if you don’t get the half day off, which nobody was expecting anyhow, don’t take it personally. Take annual leave on Monday and Tuesday (at least) and give yourself a well-deserved break.

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