Should non-believers take time off for holidays?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m probably going to get slammed and maybe Pitted for this thread but I am curious.

Across the boards we have people proudly standing up for their beliefs and convictions. I wonder, though, about whether it is hypocritical of them to “benefit” for something they don’t believe in.

If someone is non-Christian or atheist, should they take Christmas day off or should they volunteer to work that day? If someone does not support what he stood for, should they take Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Day off? If someone is believes the first settlers in America were genocidal, oppressive imperialists, should they take Thanksgiving or Independence Day off? Should pacifists and war protesters work on Memorial Day?

A company I used to work for was owned by a Jewish man (I’m not sure what the correct terminology is but he was pretty conservative and devout but he wasn’t Hassidic) and he would close the offices for the Yom Kippur, Hanukkah and so on. I told him that since I was not Jewish that I would work those days. I saw no reason why I should take a day off for a religion I did not practice. He appreciated it and let me work from home.

I think that if you are opposed to or support something then you should put your money where your mouth is. Stand up and say, “I don’t believe in sky pixies or invisible pink unicorns and I don’t believe in Jesus. Therefore I refuse to take X-mas day off!” Or, “I oppose our country’s militaristic and oppressive behavior and so I will work on Memorial Day!”

How about you? Do you think non-believers should get days off for things they don’t believe in?

2

I think in this case what you believe or don’t believe is irrelevant. If an employer gives a day off with pay for Christmas, Yom Kippur or Peanut Butter Sandwich Day, that is a benefit to which you are entitled.

In many cases it would be difficult or impossible for an employee to work on Christmas Day (for example), because the office will be closed and there will be nothing to do. Not everyone has the abilty to work from home.

Just because you don’t agree with the reason for the day off doesn’t mean that you can’t use that day to be with your family and do other things that have no relation to the holiday.

3

I’m an atheist. I believe that workers need time off work to rest and recuperate. I don’t care if they are in honour of Christ, as long as they’ve been legislated by the state. In Australia, they get the Queen’s Birthday: should supporters of an Australian republic take that day off? Yes: it doersn’t matter what its reason is.

(But I am missing Christmas Day this year, literally: I leave the US on Christmas Eve, and arrive in Australia on Boxing Day. No Christmas Day for me at all, and I certainly will not be at work.)

4

I’m an atheist but I do celebrate a secular Christmas with my family. They beleive in some sort of God type thing and I like family dinners. Plus we give each other stuff. Very religious, if you happen to be the son of God.

Even if I didn’t celebrate it though I see it more as a way to keep perceived iniquities (sp?) out of the office. If the holiday is going to be a paid day off then I’m going to take it the same as everyone else. If they want to give me a separate vacation day I’d be happy to take it some other time. Like FatBaldGuy said many offices aren’t even open to give people this option though.

[QUOTE=FatBaldGuy]
Peanut Butter Sandwich Day, /QUOTE]

We usually have one “floating holiday” each year. Next year I am definitely taking this day off.

5

Geez, I just reread my OP and realized that I probably came across as some jingoistic, redneck, Bible-thumping lunatic.
Let me clarify. I don’t think non-Christians are going to burn in Hell. I think racism is the refuge of the ignorant. I don’t think people opposed to American policies should shut up or leave the country.
I believe that people should stand behind their beliefs and not just pay lip-service to them. You oppose the violence and military action? Great! Protest, write letters, make your opinion known! But don’t take off a day meant to celebrate and honor men and women who have died in military conflicts in support of America.

6

We’re Jewish and my mom’s women’s group used to spend Christmas and Easter in hospitals helping out so people observing the holidays could be home with their families.

I always thought that was cool.

7

Non-belivers need rest like everybody else.

8

I think it depends on the store, the area and what the employee does. Obviously, working for the Baal Shem Tov’s Chandelier and Lighting in Skokie, you don’t NEED employees working on the Shabbos, whether they’re goyim or not. Your *customers *won’t be in that day! You shouldn’t have to pay them to work a day you don’t need them, and it should be clear when hiring them that whether they will be paid for those days you’re not open.

I worked for Blockbuster Video for about 7 years. They are (or were) open 365 days a year, so there were always staffing problems around the holidays.

My first store, I worked with one (1) Jewish man and eighteen (18) Jehovah’s Witnesses. The store manager was one of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Guess who worked every Christian holiday? Yep, me and the Jewish guy. Pissed me off, not so much because I was working the holidays, but because these people, for whom it was a rather large portion of their religion to NOT celebrate the holidays, were getting them off.

When I became a manager, I did take people’s religions into account. The Jewish employees got the Jewish holidays off, I took off pagan holidays (after I became one, of course), etc. None of us got more days off than anyone else, just strategically chosen days.

Christmas and even Easter are hard ones, though. Lots of people who aren’t Christian still gather for those and have legitimate reason to want it off - family dinners, parties, etc. The best I was able to do there was to give the devout Christians the day off (those who I knew went to church every week) and split the rest of the day into three shifts, instead of our normal two. It actually meant that more people worked on Christmas, but for less time each, so they could still get in family time.

Generally, people with kids had the morning off, to do the waking up to presents thing, worked the afternoon, and got to go back home for either dinner or desert and tucking in of kidlets (We also opened a little later and closed a little earlier, so Christmas shifts were 11-3, 3-7, 7-11 instead of 8-4, 4-12). Partygoers worked the morning to have the evening free. People who didn’t care filled in the gaps, and got a little extra Christmas Cheer from me personally, as well as the time-and-a-half from the company. It didn’t always work to everyone’s glee, but I tried as best I could to work with everyone.

9

Right – we can rest from non-believing by believing in something, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Then we can go back next day to the hard work of non-believing.

10

The Winter Solstice has been a “holiday” for millenia now. Most scholars say that Jesus was NOT born in the Winter. The more bluenosed Puritans scorned Christmas, finding it Popish & Pagan.

I’ll take any holiday they give me. And I’ll say “Seasons Greetings” or “Happy Holidays” unless I know the person I’m addressing prefers another salutation.

Memorial Day is a day for remembering the dead–not a celebration of All Things Bushistic.

I enjoyed the “Northern Exposure” episode where Thanksgiving was a “Day of the Dead” for Cecily’s indigenous population. But a community-wide feast followed.

Anyone fond of narrow categories & reasons NOT to celebrate might prefer reading the Sermons of Cotton Mather in chilly isolation to Wassailing & admiring the Lights.

11

Christmas hasn’t been about christianity for a loooooong time. It’s a secular holiday that some people attach religious importance to. If a date is generally accepted as a day off for most workers, it is not hypocritical to take the day off as well. As far as jewish holidays go, they’re not generally taken by non-jews, but if I had a boss who wanted to give me the day off, I’d take it. No question.

12

So if you’re against the war in Iraq, you shouldn’t take a day off to memorialize the men and women killed in every war, just or not, that occured prior to it? Why?

Things are seldom so black and white. I’m agnostic, but I “celebrate Christmas” with my family. Even if I were willing to go to work, my office is closed, kind of like almost every other office in the country. If my office is closed, I should work why? I don’t have any special plans for President’s Day, and I don’t particularly care about Columbus Day, but anytime my company wants to give me the day off with pay, I’m taking it.

On the other hand, I’d be more than happy to cover for a co-worker so that they could take off for whatever religious holiday they observe that my company doesn’t.

13

OK, the US federal holidays:

New Year’s Day
Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Washington’s Birthday
Memorial Day
Independence Day
Labor Day
Columbus Day
Veterans Day
Thanksgiving Day
Christmas Day

New Year’s Day is a Catholic Holy Day, so that plus Christmas I “believe in”. The war-based ones I don’t “believe in”. Columbus Day and Veterans Day are not given at my company anyway.

But as mentioned above, if my company gives them off I don’t have a reason to go in to work anyway.

14

That seems illegal to me. Did they ask what religion you were?

My brother used to work all the holidays so his co-workers with family could be off.

15

The reality of most businesses is that holidays are the few days a year that people get off. If the workers were allowed to choose which days to take off, then I might agree that it’s a hypocritical to take off a day in celebration of something you don’t believe in, but how many people get to choose? Very few.

16

I don’t have a choice to take them off as our office is closed on certain days. When I worked a place where it was opened, I did volunteer to work a lot of holidays (the double and a half time pay was a nice incentive).

Although as my SO found out, even working the holidays doesn’t make everyone happy. His office offers MLK Jr day as an optional day off, but only for a limited number of the staff. He offered to work that day so that someone could take it off that it really meant something to. That way someone that wanted to go to an MLK Jr day event would be able to. People started slamming him and saying he was a racist. You just can’t make everyone happy.

17

Which part sounds illegal and why? I was annoyed that the JW’s got off, but I never decided if a legal discrimination case could be made. They never asked what religion I was, but they knew I was not a JW (because I’d casually ask questions about their religion to learn about it). As it happened, I was unaffiliated at the time, but did have family Christmas with Catholic and Lutheran family which I couldn’t attend because of work.

I had no employee complaints with how I handled it. Well, other than “Why the hell are we open on Christmas anyway?” To which I would point to the line of customers at the register, each with a huge stack of tapes for the kiddies, one for the guys in the den and a chick flick for the women when they were done cooking. Y’know, so all the relatives wouldn’t have to actually *talk *to each other. Not to mention the REALLY last minute giftcard sales. My revenue tripled on Christmas and New Year’s, even with shorter open hours. (And three out of four customers would get to the register and say, “Man! I can’t *believe *you guys have to be here on Christmas!” before plunking down $35.21 for crap. :dubious: If looks could kill, my friend, if looks could kill…)

I knew many of my employees’ religions because we were friendly folks who talked about stuff to dull the monotony of working in a video store. It was not asked at the interview, nor did it have any bearing on their hire or employment. If anyone was out of town for Christmas, that would be worked around, but they were sure as heck workin’ New Year’s Eve! (And yes, it was made clear at all interviews that we are open 365 and you will be expected to work a shift on the holidays. Anyone who couldn’t agree to that would not be hired - not for religious reasons, but scheduling ones, which is not a protected class.)

If I were to armchair lawyer it, I’d say that, in Illinois anyway, giving people their religious holidays off would likely fall under Reasonable Accommodation: “Reasonable accommodation is also a requirement if necessitated by a person’s religion. An example of reasonable accommodation of a person’s religious practice may be more frequent breaks for someone who is required to pray at specified intervals throughout the day.” As long as I was able to maintain staffing without the devout Christians working Christmas, I felt obligated, ethically and legally, to do so. I also (to bring it back to the OP) felt personally obligated to work at least one of those shifts, as it wasn’t *my *religious holiday.

Obviously, there was a lot of individual discretion on these matters. Different managers handled it very differently. I, of course, think I did it the best way (or I would have done it some other way.)

18

  1. The world and this country crams Christianity down my throat most of the time. I geenrally just shrug and let it roll off my back. I wasn’t always atheist, I used to believe in something, but my beliefs still didn’t matter. But if I’m goign to have to put up with the bad parts of living in a predominantly Christian oriented society, I’m sure going to enjoy the many good parts too. One of which is the holidays.

  2. Just because I don’t believe doesn’t mean I don’t celebrate! I love Christmas!

  3. My office is pretty strict about dayoffs - from January to June and sept. and Oct there are none allowed. So beyond that, I’m taking what days I can.

19

I work at a company where I am the only gentile. Every Jewish holiday, my boss asks me if I am planning to come in. I guess I could take advantage of the situation and get some extra days off, but it doesn’t seem right to me. Those days are usually pretty quiet, but at least there is someone here to man the phone. Plus, then I figure that I don’t have to feel bad about taking Good Friday off.

20

Christmas is a purely secular holdiday for many, jut like New Years or Thanksgiving. If you want to afford it some religious significance, that’s up to you, but I don’t see what belief has to do with anything.

There is no contradiction between opposing a war and honoring veterans. Many veterans oppose the Iraq war in case you didn’t know.

In any case, a lot of people don’t have much choice about taking federal holidays off. If you have a problem with federal holidays, petition your Congressman.