Was it an April Fool’s joke?  It is not April Fool’s Day yet.  At least it is not in America right now in the area I live.  I was in total disbelief when one of my team members corrected me on the date of my project plan, stating that 4/10/09 is company holiday.  When did this occur?  I am deprived with yet another discretionary day and stuck with a fixed holiday.  Does this mean that we will be adding more company holidays and reduce our discretionary days to spend for our vacation?  Since we now have Good Friday as a company holiday, are we moving towards the trend of adopting religious festivals as company holidays?  Since outside of Christian, we do have a huge population of Muslims and Jewish, are we going to be off on some important Muslim holidays such as on 3/9/09 to celebrate the prophet’s birthday, and on 11/27/09 to celebrate Eid al-Adha to commemorate Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son as commanded by Allah, or on 9/28/09 to celebrate Yom Kippur, the most important and solemn Jewish holiday around the themes of atonement and repentance for sins against God and other people?  I am not against having the days off on these religious celebrations.  The more, the merrier.  What I am not happy is that it reduces the number of days left for my discretionary use.

I can understand the decision of the company to have Martin Luther King Jr’s Birthday off since he was an important Black civil right leader and we do have a huge black population within our company and in the United States.  In fact, Martin Luther King Jr represent an important history in America.  But Good Friday, I am sorry that not being a Christian, I cannot relate to having it as a holiday.  I don’t’ worship Jesus.  Why am I forced to take that day off!  I know that there is a huge population of Christians; however, there is equally more Muslims.

Now, you might argue why Christmas.  I think the religious meaning of it is less than that of Good Friday.  I think of it more as a day to give kids presents.  I am sorry that I can’t help but being cynical.  I did once hear the Jewish people complaining about taking Christmas off since they don’t celebrate Christmas.  It is Hanukkah that they celebrate.  Having some religious holidays off and not all is going to invite criticism and complaints down the road.  Since America is filled with immigrants (the only non-immigrants will be the Native Americans), how do you justify having one particular religious holiday and not the other?  This is just opening up a can of worms.

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