When did the Memorial Day weekend become a 4 day holiday weekend?

[Brett Wyman]

Our firm, as part of giving a perception of better work life balance, is giving everyone Friday off.

For the record, we have unlimited PTO so in a sense it really doesn't matter, except having an extra day when everyone is off is nice. We do this occasionally depending on how holidays fall. For example if 4th of July is Thursday, we would probably give the Friday to make it a four day weekend.

We started unlimited PTO in 2020. Such a weird concept.

 

[anniemae]

We usually get released early on the Friday before a 3 day holiday weekend. Nothing official, but usually in the early afternoon we are told to wrap it up and head out.

 

[QueenIsabella]

Our school has had it as a four day weekend for years, though that was the first vacation day we'd lose if we needed a make-up for excess snow days (before our Chromebooks eliminated the need for make ups). Not this year, though, because we dropped or shortened a lot of the minor breaks to try to limit the travel-and-return of students during the pandemic and to allow for a slightly later than usual start last fall when we were still getting classroom covid precautions settled.

Our old school district in upstate NY did this, but backwards. They would have 5 snow days built into the school schedule--makes sense, we got an average of 7 feet of snow a year. But, you'd have the odd year where we didn't need 5 snow days. So, they'd give the kids the Friday before Memorial Day off--by the end of May we were PROBABLY done with snow, ha ha. If it was a really weird year, they'd give Good Friday off as well, but that was dicier since it was earlier in the year, and there was always the possibility of a freak storm.

 

[belle032]

I work in city government and we just get the Monday off too. You'd never realize we don't get Friday off though, our building will be empty because everyone will take it anyway. I'm usually one of the few in the office!

I've never seen that with Memorial Day, but my company switched a few years ago where Black Friday is now an "official" paid holiday.

We have the day after Thanksgiving off as a paid holiday too. I believe we traded it for Election Day a number of years ago. I'm fine with it.

 

[wvjules]

We have “no internal meetings” on Friday. That’s almost like a holiday. lol

We were given a 5 day weekend for July 4 though. We are off the 1,2 and 5 as a paid holiday.

We also get Black Friday and the weekish between Christmas and New Years.

The extra days off make it hard to use all earned PTO.

 

[Kittyblue]

Our school close for the year May 28th! On the road to Disney the next day.

Where I work does, but every other district in town delayed the start of the school year to prep staff for distance learning and so they had to extend the year into June

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

We have “no internal meetings” on Friday. That’s almost like a holiday. lol

We were given a 5 day weekend for July 4 though. We are off the 1,2 and 5 as a paid holiday.

We also get Black Friday and the weekish between Christmas and New Years.

The extra days off make it hard to use all earned PTO.

I wish we had that problem!

 

[nycdisneygal]

Never heard of that!
I did ask for the afternoon off this year and am trying to get my husband to finish work early since we did rent a beach house for the weekend.

 

[flowergirl45]

I don’t understand unlimited PTO. Can someone please explain?

 

[goodeats]

DHs work (large corporation) goes to a 9/80 schedule in the summer. Half the people get a 4 day weekend for Memorial Day and half get a 4 day weekend for 4th of July

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

I don’t understand unlimited PTO. Can someone please explain?

There is no set amount of PTO. You take what you need. While most picture it being where people never come in, they’ve actually found people take less time off. They feel an obligation to the team and don’t want to be the weak member. And it leads to overall better morale.

While I’m sure there will always be those who abuse it, from everything I’ve heard, it’s been highly successful in companies that do it.

 

[Kitty 34]

My oldest DS is taking work off Friday because their Daycare is off . I'm not complaining as he's coming over with the grand kids and we're setting up a Play Day for them and some of my sister's grands. They haven't been together in way over a year!!

 

[KristaZ]

I'm a teacher - we pretty much always get a four day weekend for Memorial Day in my district - the Friday is considered a "Teacher Comp Day" for the nights we have to be there until 8pm for parent-teacher conferences. Other districts I've worked in have had a 4-5 day weekend for Memorial Day for unused snow days (a rare occurrence in upstate NY anyway).

 

[disny_luvr]

I haven't seen that around where I live, but I do know some school districts that are local give their students (and I guess staff) off the Friday before Memorial Day. I'm giving myself a 4-day weekend by taking off next Tuesday.

 

[ForceofWill]

Military, it's usually a 4 day unless you have duty or are doing something important, ops, deployed etc.

 

[NotUrsula]

I don't know anywhere that does this Friday as a closed-office sort of day. Lots of folks do take the day off, since a lot of people have a kind of symbolic "thing" about Memorial Day Weekend as the official start of summer.

I will say that when I take off for this kind of nationwide holiday weekend, I actually prefer to take the Tuesday off instead of the Friday. I like to use these opportunities to get out of town, and travelling on Saturday/Tuesday is *much* less hassle and expense than Friday/Monday.

 

[Skippyboo]

The first company I worked for had 2 floating holidays: one was day after Thanksgiving and the other was usually used to make 4th of July a extra long weekend.

 

[NYCgrrl]

I think that companies that endorse a workless day on the Friday are just facing the reality that many people want the day off to extend the holiday. If you look at AAA‘s road forecast you’ll find that the highways are already crowded that day.