There have been a lot of emails floating around the baseball blog world lately about making Opening day a national holiday in the United States, with Americans free to stay at home (or at least take the afternoon off) and enjoy a ballgame. A good idea, I say. And once "National Pastime Day" is in place, the precedent is set for "It's A Mortal Sin To Make Anyone Work Today Day," to be observed every January 1 so each and every Red Blooded American can stay home to watch the Rose Bowl.

Here's my idea: instead of picking a specific event to hold as a holiday, we let the individual choose which day he or she wants, and the employer can't say squat about it.

I used to work at a certain Home Improvement Warehouse in Bellevue (that so happens to heavily sponsor the Mariners, more on them in an upcoming post), and there were several employees in my department that got every Sunday off so that they can go to church, which they were fully entitled to. I personally don't attend church services of any kind (nothing against it, just not for me I guess), so I worked every Sunday for the duration of my stint with the company. One day in July I put in a request to have four Saturdays off to travel to Pullman to see Cougar football games (I hadn't enrolled yet), and was immediately rejected. "_____, ______, and _____ can take 52 Sundays off, and I can't have FOUR Saturdays?" I asked, but it fell on deaf ears. Under my system, I could have had my time off (they could have easily covered my absence with one of the Church People).

EPILOGUE:
Until my plan in implemented (vote Caldwell in 2016, The Voice Of The People), when you're at some place that it clearly sucks to work at (like rhymes with Ballmart or something), don't ever mention to an employee that you think it stinks they have to work that day. You're why he does.