Feb. 19, President’s Day, is a day dedicated to honoring our nation’s presidents and it’s a federal holiday.
This year Cal State Long Beach students got screwed out of a day off. If you’re like me, you probably got informed via e-mail.
The Office of Academic Personnel sent us this: “This is a reminder that the campus will be open and classes will be in session on Monday, Feb. 19 (President’s Day). This is a change in practice from previous years, and we apologize for any confusion that may have occurred as a result. This change was necessary in order to accommodate the state-mandated Veterans Day holiday in the fall.”
Necessary? I don’t think it was necessary to take away one of our days off. In fact we should have both days off. After all, they are both federal holidays. If federal employees get it off why don’t we?
I tried to answer this question by calling every number listed on the CSULB Web site under the Academic Personnel link. Finally, after six tries, I got in touch with Robin L. Moore, Academic Personnel Analyst. Alright, I thought, I had reached someone who can shed light on this mystery: I was wrong.
She didn’t know why the change was necessary to accommodate Veteran’s Day, but, she was able to answer my question as to why I wasn’t able to get in touch with the other six people.
The other six people were either at a meeting, home sick or taking care of a sick child. Ok, the last one had a good excuse. What about the other four? Where were they while the rest of us, students and teachers, had to show up.
How many people have ever called in sick just to have the day off work?
As far as I’m concerned, it’s un-American. Instead of being at school, I should have been recovering from a hangover.
It seems obvious now that the only people that got President’s Day off at CSULB this year are people of authority, or more specifically, the administration.
This seems wrong, considering that it is a federal holiday and we should have all been at home or somewhere other than the campus.
All the graduating seniors this semester should be disgusted; they never previously had to come to school on this holiday, and the semester before they graduate the administration yanks one of their three-day weekends away. I don’t know about the rest of you but for me three-day weekends usually translate to party time.
If we had careers instead of attending college and had to work on this holiday, for the most part, we would at least be making over-time pay.
At least there was one good perk about President’s Day the drive to school didn’t take that long.
I’d just like the administration to know one thing: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
Jonathan Finn is a junior journalism major and a production assistant for the Daily Forty-Niner.
