Economics aside, I enjoy a good holiday. Who doesn’t? During my college years in Toronto I had a great deal of holiday-envy. My friends studying in the States seemed to have a ton of holidays. Christmas was nearly a month, while ours was about 10 days. Thanksgiving went almost a week, while ours was only one day. And while they had Spring break, where they could head off to Cancun during March, we had “Reading week”, which was a week in the middle of a dead-cold Canadian February that was literally spent reading as exams took place right after.
Meanwhile, back home I didn’t know what was going on. My friends never seemed to be in school. Their semesters didn’t start until October, and in Ramadan they could take it easy. Plus you had a ton of holidays in between like the many days of both Eids, Christmas, and various other religious and nationalistic holidays.
But I survived.
Moving back here, I thought to myself, finally, I can now enjoy being in a country where there are a bunch of days off.
I think about 2 weeks after I got here, the government screwed up the scheduling of public holidays, which lead to the longest one on record. This annoyed the King who in turn ordered that holidays be cut and a schedule be created. There wasn’t a single day off between Labor Day in May and Eid il-Fitr in October.
To make matters worse, a lot of the holidays this year fell on weekends.
So once again, the gods of holidays have screwed me.
Last year’s 10-day holiday aside, I don’t remember ever enjoying a proper holiday in Jordan because Eid and Christmas and all that was usually followed by exams, and then one day holidays are a nice break but you can’t exactly plan much.
I find it interesting how the non-Jordanians in the office are all planning to go away on holiday end of December, and I mean proper two-week holidays. You don’t find this mindset in Jordanian culture. Since you’re the expert on Abu Mahjoob’s cartoons, remember that cartoon about adding a second day to the weekend? 😉
loooooooooooooooooool @ “So once again, the gods of holidays have screwed me.” If they screwed you both in Canada and in Jordan, then you might wanna try the American ones.. they should love you 😀
*North American
So I see, America the most developed country in the world has the longest holidays, that should tell you something about the rules of productivity
Ola, actually no! Corporate America observes a total of 6-7 days a year for all holidays which include New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, MLK, Thanksgiving, and Christmas! Malls and restaurants almost always open, even during the holidays – but under special hours!
People here put in a lot of time at work – that social life seems to be an after thought!
Nas, 😀 It’s okay…at least you get Eid off 😛
if its holidays u want, move to lebanon .. mish tabi3i shu 3indhum holidays .. i went to uni there and we used to get days off the time .. not to mention whenever an assassination occurs and a mourning period is observed .. those are an added bonus 😀
Ola, I don’t think any Arab country can bash productivity losses in any other part of the world until accurate figures of productivity loss during Ramadan are released.
HAHAHA 😀
il khatimih bitmawwit do7ok its full of misery which makes it even funnier:P
ba3eedan 3an il mawdoo3, if you have time please read this post, not funny at all, but definately (or is it definitly?:P:P) interesting:
riverbendblog.blogspot.com.
have a nice day poor holiday-less nas! 😀
Well, we really do appreciate a holiday, but personally, I prefer short holidays, say a week, because if it’s long we just get lazy…
Haram though, your holidays were too short…