Should 29th Feb be a bank holiday?

[Titan]

It has occurred to me that those of us who are salaried are effectively working for nothing today since we will not get an extra days pay. Would a good solution be to make Feb 29th a bank holiday?

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Unfortunately for that idea you will probably find your contract is per month; and there is no specification of the month duration. As a temporary corrective measure I'll arrange to dock your salary by 1/31st per 30 day months, 2/31sts per 29 day month, and 3/31sts per 28 day month. Does that fix it?

[Quarryscapes]

I'd sooner the concept of a bank holiday was done away with altogether, along with the idea of having 'business hours/days' 

[Oldddudders]

I don't see the problem. My salary, and now both my occupational and state pensions, are all paid 4-weekly. Demand a better deal.

[Colin_McLeod]

My fortnightly pay equals my daily pay times 14

My daily pay equals my annual pay divided by 365.25 . So 29 days every fourth February is already taken care of in the agreed calculation of daily pay. Hourly pay equals fortnightly pay divided by 78.

[phil-b259]

No - we already get a reasonable smattering of bank holidays through the first half of the year.

 

If an extra bank holiday is felt needed then putting one between August and December is a far better solution

[BoD]

It only comes round once in a blue moon.

 

 

No. That's not right, is it?

[The Stationmaster]

But if it was made a Bank Holiday some halfwit - in fact probaly quite a lot of halfwits - would want to know why they don't get one every year.  So to keep them happy the Bank Holiday would be moved to 28 February - and you would be back where you started.

[Metr0Land]

No - we already get a reasonable smattering of bank holidays through the first half of the year.

 

If an extra bank holiday is felt needed then putting one between August and December is a far better solution

 

 

Trafalgar Day being the obvious choice!  (oops hope that's not too political with the in/out debate going on)

[Neil]

It has occurred to me that those of us who are salaried are effectively working for nothing today since we will not get an extra days pay. Would a good solution be to make Feb 29th a bank holiday?

 

This sounds like the ideal situation in which to deploy an unofficial compensatory sickie; as it will only be wheeled out once every four years I doubt if the bods in personnel will twig.

[alastairq]

If I've got this right, doesn't it take the Earth 365 1/4 days to orbit the Sun?

 

So, every year, we are effectively a 1/4 adrift, astronomically speaking?

 

Which is all caught up every 4 years, hence the extra calendar day?

 

Could this argument not then be interpreted as everyone on a calendar monthly salary, get a 1/4 day extra for nowt, for 3 years?  

 

If an injustice is seen to occur, then why not take a day off 'sick?'

 

Besides, February being a short month, if paid monthly, pay day comes around a bit sooner than normal?

 

At least we don't get 'national' holidays either?

 

Bank holidays [as if they deserve them?]...have gone the way of Sundays....a thing of the past, in all practical sense?

[Kenton]

 

Bank holidays [as if they deserve them?]...have gone the way of Sundays....a thing of the past, in all practical sense?

 

 

What's a holiday?

 

Give them a day and they will take a week (the days either side) and what will most people do with it (in February of all the most depressing months) waste it.

 

Crack the whip, up the productivity, backs tied to the wheel, feet on the treddle

[Horsetan]

   

 

What's a holiday?

 

Two bloody "&nbsp"s!

[seahorse]

Why can't we have the extra day in summer instead of in winter??

[edcayton]

   

 

 

 

Give them a day and they will take a week (the days either side) and what will most people do with it (in February of all the most depressing months) waste it.

 

Crack the whip, up the productivity, backs tied to the wheel, feet on the treddle

 

Have a holiday on the first of March every year that is not a Leap Year.

 

Ed

[Kenton]

 

Two bloody "&nbsp"s!

 

 

Yes, how do you think I feel ... and just look what this editor does to them when they are quoted.

 

It gets even more silly when others use external editors like Word the copy and paste all their spaces hidden to them.

 

I've given up editing them out, life's too short. The software is broken, and that is it. No one is interested in fixing it so we are where we are. It didn't used to be like this, it all went wrong with the first update of the blogs not long after we went over to IPB.

 

But it is mostly my posts affected so at least you can see my paw marks all over where I have been.

[Tim Hall]

This sounds like the ideal situation in which to deploy an unofficial compensatory sickie; as it will only be wheeled out once every four years I doubt if the bods in personnel will twig.

Oh yes indeed you should.

[Ozexpatriate]

Just don't call it 02/29.

 

It is odd to me that February has 28 (and almost 25% of years 29) days instead of 30 is an odd outcome of the Gregorian calendar. You'd think they would have borrowed days from some of the months with 31 days to make it regularly 30 days and occasionally 31, but there is little logic in calendars.

 

No one was too keen on the French Republican calendar. (A ten day week seems very long to me.)

 

Personally, my favourite calendar is the Shire Reckoning - a mix of Anglo-Saxon and Gregorian calendars. It has 12 months of 30 days and for each month dates were consistent to the same day of the week for every year. The balance of days were holidays that did not have a day of the week.  At midsummer there were three consecutive holidays - 1 Lithe, Mid-year's day and 2 Lithe. In leap years there was a leap day (Overlithe) after Mid-year's day, and yes, per the suggestion in this thread, it was a holiday.

[rab]

I've probably got this wrong but I seem to remember something about when the calendar was set up, the year began in March. The months had alternatively 31 and 30 days. This only left 28 days for the last month, February.

 

The 31/30 pattern originally meant August had 30 days but Augustus got a bit upset because the month named after him had one day less than the month named after Julius, July, so he swapped August to have 31 days, which changed subsequent months, September 30, October 31 etc.

[Ozexpatriate]

I've probably got this wrong but I seem to remember something about when the calendar was set up, the year began in March. The months had alternatively 31 and 30 days. This only left 28 days for the last month, February.

It did.  The traditional first day of the new year in the Latin Christian world was the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25th) - which is where 1 AD began (in principle though there is a lot of ± going on in the maths, no year 0, etc).

 

The ten month calendar (beginning in March and ending in December, the tenth month) is attributed to Romulus. (This had 304 days and winter wasn't counted as having a month.)

 

The addition of January and February are attributed to Numa Pompilius, the second of the seven Kings of Rome (7^th / 8^th century BCE).

 

Starting in March explains why January and February would have been added at the end of the year, but are now considered the beginning.

 

The Julian reform added the leap day, rearranged the lengths of months etc.

[kevinlms]

The banks will react by making 29 February a double interest day on LOANS only, just because they can.

 

Anyone want to risk that?

[PaulRhB]

So most months have 30 or 31 days but when February creeps up to one day less those on monthly pay reckon they are hard done by?

Surely you are getting two days extra pay for nothing 3 years in a row but only one day extra pay on a leap year?

You signed the contract for the job and this calendars been in use for a few years now so why is it a 'surprise'?

I get paid four weekly which means stuff going out on set dates is of no real use to me as my pay day constantly moves around the month, that's something I manage to deal with every year

[jonny777]

Trafalgar Day being the obvious choice!  (oops hope that's not too political with the in/out debate going on)

 

Is there really any point in having a holiday towards the end of October? The weather will probably be rubbish anyway (nothing remarkable there), but if we really want to cheer people up with an extra day's holiday, why not add the Friday onto the August Bank Holiday and make a long weekend of it?

[PhilJ W]

You could also look at it in another way. Those that were paid monthly got an extra days pay in 1900 because it was not a leap year. And those who will be on monthly pay in the year 2100 will also get an extra days pay for the same reason.

[Colin_McLeod]

You could also look at it in another way. Those that were paid monthly got an extra days pay in 1900 because it was not a leap year. And those who will be on monthly pay in the year 2100 will also get an extra days pay for the same reason.

 

Now what will I spend that on?

 

PS I will be  146 then!!