Holiday office closures for December, January
December 1, 2015 •
Winter holidays will be observed this year on Dec. 24 and 25, and New Year holidays will be observed on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, but UCOP offices will be closed from Thursday, Dec. 24, through Sunday, Jan. 3, as follows:
- Winter holidays (paid): Dec. 24, 25 and 31 and Jan. 1
- Office closure (unpaid): Dec. 28, 29 and 30
- Office reopens: Monday, Jan. 4, 2016
Eligible employees can use vacation, compensatory time or leave without pay to cover the three workdays during the closure. If you haven’t accumulated enough vacation leave by December to cover those days, arrangements can be made to allow you to borrow against future vacation time.
Each department head may identify essential services that must be maintained during this period and plan for staffing accordingly.
For questions about the holiday schedule, please contact Linda Klink in UCOP Local Human Resources.
Hanukah will begin sunset December 6 and end on Monday, December 14 at sunset. Although we are celebrating a religious miracle, this holiday is what I term an enhanced Memorial/Veteran’s Day. It is NOT our most important holiday but as part of the diaspora and we have adopted some of the majority practices. So, if you want to wish people a happy holiday, please be careful after December 14th. We may not be working and the time off is called a holiday, it is not a holiday for everyone.
Ribbons, carolers, Santa Claus, green and red, decorated pine trees, gifts are part of Christmas; not Hanukah.
Also the new year was celebrated on September 13th to 23rd. Again, be careful about wishing everyone a Happy New Year. I’m so sorry if I’m spoiling your fun but my fun has been spoiled already. Since I began working at UCOP in 1998, I have tried to call attention to the anti-Semitism and anti-other religious practices here. Apparently this has not worked.
I’m sure most of you have read about anti-Semitism on campuses including anti Israeli comments. Being against Israel’s policies ISN’T anti-Semitic. Continuing to throw Christmas as an important holiday is anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim and celebrating it OP wide is insulting. You can call it Happy Holiday or Winter Holiday but it is still what it is.
In my family, all that is identified here as Christmas is part of a joyously-commercialized pagan celebration that has nothing to do with religion, as we are not christian. We co-opted the name but not the meaning.
There are many ways to celebrate the dark season and choosing one (or many) does not mean we don’t respect and honor them all. I wish we had the choice to take our holiday time at the time that is sacred to our individual families.