Yet Another Holiday
Do you know what special day today is?
Happy Winter Solstice, everyone!
Yes, Winter officially kicks in today, despite the fact that it’s 6 above zero outside and there’s a foot of snow on the ground. We’ll just call that a “sneak preview”, shall we?
The bright spot about all this is that from here on out the days will start getting longer again. It’ll be a while before we actually start seeing the sun after 4:30 or so, but at least we’re now on the upswing.
I used to work with a guy who was a major tree hugger of some sort, and he and his wife used to throw a huge Winter Solstice party every year. I never went, but from what I heard it involved a lot of crystals, hippie dancing, zither music, and hugging. Oooookay. He used to also get majorly excited over the spring and autumnal equinoxes, too. Hey, whatever floats your boat, I suppose.
It’s always amazed me what some people consider to be important holidays. I mean, look at Columbus Day. Big Deal. If ol’ Chris hadn’t eventually landed on those distant shores, someone else would’ve. Does that mean we should have to mark the occasion every year for the next 500+ years? Okay, maybe I’m just jealous, because I don’t work for a bank and/or the Post Office, so I’ve never actually had Columbus Day off. Still, as far as major holidays go, it’s pretty lame.
Back when I worked for the Japanese, we had 6 set holidays throughout the year (the Big 6, as people call them), then there were four “alternate” holidays, which we’d vote on. There were always the standards – Christmas Eve, day after Thanksgiving, President’s Day, M.L. King Day, etc...
But one year I decided to rally the employees around a different holiday, and asked everyone to vote for MY choice for the perfect day to be closed:
Halloween.
You see, I thought it’d be funny to be able to tell people that we would be closed on October 31 in honor of witches and ghouls and the walking dead.
It’d be cool - how many other corporations are closed in celebration of Halloween? I mean, other than perhaps Wiccan candle makers or pentagram engravers, everyone else would still be working.
So I rallied the troops, and asked everyone to waste their fourth vote on Halloween. The last thing I heard, we had enough votes to definitely finish in the top 3.
Alas, the H.R. manager didn’t find it very funny to think that a major international company would be closed in honor of Satan, so she “rigged” the voting so that July 5 would be our fourth official holiday. Boo. hiss. I tried to convince her that we really weren’t honoring Lucifer; instead we were taking the day off to pay respects to the centuries old tradition of trick or treating, carving pumpkins, and dressing up like Frankenstein.
She didn’t buy it.
So that ended my quest to mark October 31 as an official company holiday. And it’s twice as bad to know that we all got laid off before the next year’s voting, because I was going to campaign for April 1.
I mean, who’s got a problem with April Fools?
Happy Winter Solstice, everyone!
Yes, Winter officially kicks in today, despite the fact that it’s 6 above zero outside and there’s a foot of snow on the ground. We’ll just call that a “sneak preview”, shall we?
The bright spot about all this is that from here on out the days will start getting longer again. It’ll be a while before we actually start seeing the sun after 4:30 or so, but at least we’re now on the upswing.
I used to work with a guy who was a major tree hugger of some sort, and he and his wife used to throw a huge Winter Solstice party every year. I never went, but from what I heard it involved a lot of crystals, hippie dancing, zither music, and hugging. Oooookay. He used to also get majorly excited over the spring and autumnal equinoxes, too. Hey, whatever floats your boat, I suppose.
It’s always amazed me what some people consider to be important holidays. I mean, look at Columbus Day. Big Deal. If ol’ Chris hadn’t eventually landed on those distant shores, someone else would’ve. Does that mean we should have to mark the occasion every year for the next 500+ years? Okay, maybe I’m just jealous, because I don’t work for a bank and/or the Post Office, so I’ve never actually had Columbus Day off. Still, as far as major holidays go, it’s pretty lame.
Back when I worked for the Japanese, we had 6 set holidays throughout the year (the Big 6, as people call them), then there were four “alternate” holidays, which we’d vote on. There were always the standards – Christmas Eve, day after Thanksgiving, President’s Day, M.L. King Day, etc...
But one year I decided to rally the employees around a different holiday, and asked everyone to vote for MY choice for the perfect day to be closed:
Halloween.
You see, I thought it’d be funny to be able to tell people that we would be closed on October 31 in honor of witches and ghouls and the walking dead.
It’d be cool - how many other corporations are closed in celebration of Halloween? I mean, other than perhaps Wiccan candle makers or pentagram engravers, everyone else would still be working.
So I rallied the troops, and asked everyone to waste their fourth vote on Halloween. The last thing I heard, we had enough votes to definitely finish in the top 3.
Alas, the H.R. manager didn’t find it very funny to think that a major international company would be closed in honor of Satan, so she “rigged” the voting so that July 5 would be our fourth official holiday. Boo. hiss. I tried to convince her that we really weren’t honoring Lucifer; instead we were taking the day off to pay respects to the centuries old tradition of trick or treating, carving pumpkins, and dressing up like Frankenstein.
She didn’t buy it.
So that ended my quest to mark October 31 as an official company holiday. And it’s twice as bad to know that we all got laid off before the next year’s voting, because I was going to campaign for April 1.
I mean, who’s got a problem with April Fools?
posted by Tommy G at
10:05 AM
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