President Obama gives federal employees Christmas Eve off

[cal04]

President Barack Obama on Friday signed an executive order giving federal employees the day off on Christmas Eve, which falls on Monday.

Exceptions apply for employees asked by their departments and agencies to work for reasons of national security, defense or other public needs.

Most employees who are excused from duty Dec. 24 will receive the basic pay they would have received if no executive order had been issued. Workers who previously scheduled leave on Christmas Eve will not be charged that leave.

Federal workers had petitioned the president to give them the day off through the White House's official online petition platform. More than 28,000 people had signed the petition as of Friday.

http://hamptonroads.com/2012/12/obama-gives-federal-employees-christmas-eve

[TDale313]

1. Very nice. n/t

[NightWatcher]

2. Damn you Obama and your damned dirty, Christmas hating heart.

How else will the repukes spin this?

War On Christmas Eve Workers?

Maybe he's doing it because he's manipulated by the Egg Nog sellers and is abusing his powers to get people to engage in more nog consumption...

[SheilaT]

3. Sure is nice to work for the federal government.

I work in a hospital, and I'm actually shocked at how many departments here are going to be closed Christmas Eve.

[Hekate]

4. Everyone in essential services has to have their leave evaluated

Just like people in hospitals. I hope someone will trade a day off with you or something if you really need it.

[wickerwoman]

6. It probably would be,

if there wasn't so much blind anti-government hate rhetoric.

If you don't like your working conditions, fight for better ones but don't whine because people who face regular bomb threats, who saw 168 of their coworkers killed in Oklahoma City, who regularly face down guns and pit bulls and methheads on site visits, who accept less pay than they would make in the private sector and who are forced to take unpaid leave every time Congress can't get its shit together on the budget get to have one extra day off on Christmas Eve to spend with their families. Do you really think any work was going to get done on the Monday between a weekend and a holiday when all the front counters are closed anyway? How many people say "Christmas Eve is the day to pay my taxes or request a background check or get my passport renewed"?

It's mind-boggling to me how petty and mean-spirited people can be towards federal employees just because they're "on the taxpayer's dime".

[Hekate]

7. What you said

[SheilaT]

9. It's just that I've always had jobs where

we work pretty much 24/7, and it's mind-boggling to me how much time off some people get in other jobs.

I actually worked for the federal government back in 1979 for six months or so, and I was completely astonished at how little productive work anyone actually did, at least in the areas that I saw. When I'm at work I actually expect to be working all of the time I'm on the job, other than when at lunch or on a break. I don't expect to be able to chit-chat with co-workers for 45 minutes at a time.

I kept on requesting more and more work, because it made me crazy not to be productive, and I was told be two different people in that office that if I'd been a real employee, not just the student intern I was, I'd have been promoted out of there so fast it would have made my head spin, because I made everyone else look bad. I even wound up doing revisions of manuals produced by that office that had not had the revisions inserted in 12 years. 12 years. I could not imagine how that had been allowed to go on.

As for the pay scales, at the federal level it doesn't seem so bad. At least I've never made the kind of money that I see even low and mid level federal employees make. I was a GS-2 myself, and I doubt that low a classification even exists anymore. But it was better than minimum wage.

And if I'm in a job where I have to work on the Monday before a holiday, I expect to put in a productive day. What a novel concept.

[yewberry]

13. Allow me to enlighten you about the reality of public employment in 2012.

I've been employed with my agency since 2007. My agency lost most of its dedicated funding in 2001 and we've been struggling to figure out funding since then. The legislature has resisted funding the agency since then, so we've had RIFs and lots of unfilled positions since.

I've worked in HR and Operations. In HR, we're so critically understaffed that I've actually cried going into work because I knew that I had no chance at all of accomplishing all of the work that had to be done. But it's just HR, right? No one care if employees actually get the help they need, right? And requesting more work? Well, it must have been nice to have worked for the feds in 1979 for 6 months, I guess.

In Operations we work 24/7/365. Yeah, how great it is that public employees get so much paid time off! Bad news though: if we can't figure out a way to take time off without creating OT, we lose that vacation time... but we can't take time off if it's busy. Kind of hard to plan, eh? I suppose for a temp that might not be a problem. And here's another clue... sometimes we do stuff using a 12-year-old procedure because WE DON'T HAVE TIME to update procedures. I'm doing complicated work without tech help because no one else knows what I do and no one can do my work while I redesign how the work is done. Once again: I'm the only one who knows how to do my job, doing mission-critical work, and I have NO IT ASSISTANCE. I am doing this shit with Word and Excel.

And pay scales... my group is making less than 50% of what other PUBLIC employees make. We're WAY behind private employees. So, it must be nice to have that holiday off. I'll be productive on the Monday preceding AND on the holiday. Enjoy your day off.

[wickerwoman]

18. In theory,

we get time off in lieu (TOIL ) instead of overtime pay and everyone on my team has amassed tons of it because we were given a three year work program with an 18 month deadline and no budget. We found out two weeks before Christmas that if we didn't use it before the holiday break, it would expire. Nobody could take the time off because we had a draft due the day before the break and they were still putting in fourteen hour days. Many people had more than two weeks saved up and didn't get any of it.

F'in lazy public workers!

[Earth_First]

14. Holy hell your disdain for the worker is fucking appaling...

You sure you are in the right place?

[CTyankee]

15. I for one will not bash you, wickerwoman. The Monday holiday makes sense.

In this country we are far overworked. We have fewer holidays and no national policies of PTO for maternity/paternity leave and other time off benefits enjoyed by advanced countries around the world. Workers here just don't know about it because we are so isolated. Getting to know people in western European countries is an eye opener, believe me!

[EmeraldCityGrl]

5. He will probably get criticism for this

so makes the decisions even more thoughtful. In many
families including ours, Christmas Eve is celebrated more
than Christmas Day.

[HiPointDem]

17. just check this thread.

[Silver Swan]

8. I worked for the Federal government for 35 years.

If Christmas fell on a Thursday or a Tuesday, we always got the Friday or Monday between the holiday and the weekend off.

Some years they made a fuss about it, but we always got it off. (One year, the Washington bosses only gave us four hours, but the local honchos were authorized to give us another four hours, and they did.)

I haven't kept track since my retirement, so I'm not certain about the last ten years, but when I was working it was somewhat expected.

[msongs]

10. does he give everyone the day off for holidays of other religions at tax payer expense?

he says we should take cuts but federal employees get days off with pay. ok

[nakocal]

12. Federal Employees are tax payers too

Federal employees have had their pay frozen for at least three years because republicans have been demanding that wealthy parasites get an additional tax break.

[Teamster Jeff]

11. Obama makes 3-month pay freeze extension official

http://blogs.federaltimes.com/federal-times-blog/2012/12/21/obama-makes-3-month-pay-freeze-extension-official/

December 21st, 2012...President Obama on Friday issued a memo officially freezing federal pay scales for the first three months of 2013.

Obama’s freeze — which extends a pay scale freeze that has already stretched for two years — is no surprise. In August, he proposed freezing pay until Congress passes an actual budget and stops funding the government through a series of continuing resolutions, or CRs. One month later, Congress passed a six-month CR that freezes pay and partially funds the government until March 27.

The pay freeze memo came a few hours after President Obama granted feds a day off on Christmas Eve. Which once again shows, you win some, you lose some.

I guess "big government" must be dealt with.

[Nye Bevan]

16. Excellent! Good for him! (nt)