The Un-public Hoilday

Hey, so I wrote this a while ago... then I lost it... now I found it! So another opinion style piece.

As another public holiday looms closer, the country's thoughts become divided. Those fortunate enough to work in offices plan their weekends away. When to leave to avoid the traffic, if taking the kids away from school early is a good idea, what to do with pets... The rest of us? We plan for a busy weekend at work. Lines of people packing the store, all cranky with everyone else.

Public Holidays are no longer ‘public’ and to claim them as such is a lie. In fact, there isn’t one day in the calendar year that every single person isn’t required to work. People work Christmas. Even more get upset that the supermarket has the audacity to be closed two days a year.

Since when did the world end because you couldn’t go shopping that day? Since when could we not plan enough in advance to cope with such a catastrophe? Since when did these so called ‘public holidays’ become days for shopping? More important than the family and holiday that we’re supposed to be celebrating.

Public holidays shouldn’t be days where staff panic about long queues and being abused by those fortunate enough to have the day off. Time and a half and a day in lieu the only motivation to walk through the door those days. To deal with insane business and impatient customers who are redeemed only the amusement their foolishness provides.

But I can’t place the blame just on public holidays. Weekends are no longer days off either. Fridays not really the last day of  work for this exact same group of the workforce. The people who work for minimum wage and countless hours so that anyone can shop whenever they desire. So those that work Monday to Fridays can catch up on their weekly shopping needs.

More and more we’re hearing an outcry that our youth aren’t spending enough time with their families and interacting with the world around them. Most people blame cellphones, tablets, and computers. Say that social media’s taking over. I’d like to suggest it’s these lack of ‘family’ days. That our youth have disengaged from sports because they know that their hand working parents don’t have the weekends free to transport them to games, nor cheer them on from the sidelines.

We as a society value work more than we value family. We have no respect for taking time off to spend with those we hold dear to us. We work to provide for them, but fail to remember that money can’t solve everything. That we cannot dedicate the time our families need when we work weekends and public holidays.

Public holidays, like weekends, have become just another work day for a vast majority of New Zealand’s workforce, and that, in itself is a shame. How bad is it that we as a society cannot cope for a day without our shops. That we’d rather have people working public holidays to serve us rather than being home and spending time with family members.