Holidays: we have too much of it

In the month of December, almost half of the month is considered a holiday. Name it: official holiday, non-working holiday and special non-working holiday.

Officially, December 24 is the last business day of the month. People queue up at the banks for that last minute transaction and as for the businesses, expedite to close deals with their business partners.

I thought it's back to work on January 2, 2009. But alas, GMA declared it as a special non-working holiday. That's a total of 2 weeks of no work, no business and free vacation!

Employees marvel and celebrate on the extended vacation. Not all are on a holiday spree though. People who work in customer service oriented industries are exempted from the holidays i.e. call centers, department stores, supermarkets and the like. It's business as usual for them. The plus side of it is they get a higher pay rate for the days that are officially declared as holidays.

The long holidays for the business owners, on the one hand, means unnecessary delays and lost time to do what can be done supposedly for the month of December. Come January 5, it's rush, rush, rush. To close the year end books and to make up for the time lost during the holiday period. Having had worked for expats in my previous jobs, my bosses would frown at the thought of these holidays. The Philippines has too much holidays in their calendar, I'd hear them say this year in year out. It's true. No doubt it.

My thoughts on this abundance of holidays: I'm totally indifferent about it. My work doesn't follow the Philippines' calendar. So, all those double, triple pay rates doesn't apply to me.