Getting Paid Holidays Means Planning First, Celebrating Later
Getting time off for less common holidays will take planning and negotiation.
Sept. 25, 2008 — -- Back in the '90s, when I was someone else's employee, I often wished I had time off for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.
Though I wasn't much of a templegoer, I enjoyed the family feasts and reunions that marked the holiday each fall. And while I could cook a dish the night before and take the train after work from Manhattan to the New Jersey suburbs where my relatives lived, having the day off so I didn't have to rush around would have been infinitely easier.
Dec. 24 and 25 were givens -- for everyone at my company -- but the Jewish celebrations were ever-absent from the employee holiday calendar. Surely, I deserved a couple days off in the fall to spend my own "most wonderful time of the year" shopping, cooking, watching football and fighting with relatives?
Alas, I was young, meek and worried that requesting time off without pay for a lesser known holiday wouldn't be kosher, so to speak. Nor did I want to give up one of my precious handful of paid vacation and sick days. So I sucked it up and went to work on Rosh Hashana, eventually writing off those family celebrations as too much of a schlep.
Years later, when I became my own boss, the "Should I or shouldn't I ask for time off?" dilemma ceased to be.
But for many employees who celebrate less-common religious or cultural holidays -- Ramadan, Passover, Juneteenth and summer solstice, to name a few -- getting time off work can still be tricky.
Taking the Day Off on Your Own Dime
Ekta Chopra, a business analyst, was able to get off for her selected holidays, but she was not paid for them and had to make up for the lost time.
"I recently became a New York City employee and asked the personnel department for the list of holidays that are considered religious for different cultures," Chopra said.
"They gave me a list of Chinese, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, et cetera [holidays], but I was shocked that none of them included Hindu holidays. I am a Hindu. … So, I provided them my Hindu calendar and marked the most important ones."
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