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March 10, 2006
How Insensitive
I learned yesterday that Hewlett-Packard México, which has several different facilities here in the Guadalajara metropolitan area, does not give its workers time off for Mexican holidays. Instead, they get the hoidays of the United States, which do not correspond to their own holidays, apart from Christmas and New Year's Day. Now this does make sense to a certain degree, since many of them are dealing with American customers of HP, but the crappy thing is, they do not really give them all the official American holidays. HP México employees didn't get Martin Luther King Day or Presidents' Day off, for example.
Posted by crispy at March 10, 2006 03:13 PM
Comments
You mean mexicans can't celebrate Jan 28th "National Complaint Day"
Posted by: akira at March 10, 2006 05:19 PM
Oh, come on... who gets Presidents' Day off, really? I mean, other than those dastardly bank people, who EVERYONE KNOWS don't buy print cartridges from HP. Money is printed with Lexmark equipment! Duh! I guess the schoolkids get it off, and it *is* sad that they can't get their HPM fix that day, but it's just good training for the rest of life's disappointments. And MLK... what, are you going to start agitating for HP to recognize Cesar Chavez too?
Posted by: Kevin Wenzel at March 10, 2006 06:05 PM
Pssh.
I didn't get those holidaze off either. Only the Big Six: New Year's, Memorial Day, July Fourth, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Those are the ones relegated to the common worker. MLK and Prez Daze are for government workers.
Course, common worker means fancypants workers like me, not the lowlifes who make me food or keep the gas stations open for me on Christmas.
Posted by: Mark Allen at March 10, 2006 08:49 PM
BAH HA HA HAAAAAA!
It's so clear y'all are living in the United States, and so evident that I am swiftly converting to that Mexican way of thinking.
I admit that once upon a time, this would not have surprised me, but I failed to stress that this is being dealt with by people in Mexico. You see, in Mexico, if you're Catholic (and most people claim to be Catholic), almost every day is a holiday, and frequently, there are holidays that last one or two weeks.
Of course, I can barely make out the rules, let alone the whims of the "One True Church" (ah, how I do so love that one), so I do not expect Hewlett-Packard to do so. Yet the fact that the folks down here do not get a single day off for Easter from them puts them into the "evil overlord" category of employer.
If they're not going to get Juarez's birthday, a day that I think should be celebrated in the United States also, they should at least get Presidents' Day. But then again, I was always too socialist to be in business.
Posted by: Chris Coen at March 11, 2006 09:30 AM
Well, they could get another job. Still, as an employee of an evil overlord corporation (no raise in six years while company makes 30 percent net) I have empathy but no sympathy.
And anyway, why can't I get off for Sex With Animals Day?
Posted by: Mark Allen at March 11, 2006 09:50 AM
Homer: (From Moe's Tavern) "Hello work? This is Homer Simpson, I won't be in today, feast of ... Maximum Occupence."
Posted by: akira at March 13, 2006 03:14 PM
You know, this brings up an aspect of outsourcing I hadn't considered.
As American jobs go overseas, how much American culture tags along with them?
Does working for an American company overseas mean you should celebrate "Independence Day" on July Fourth? What if you have your own "Inependence Day" -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day
I wonder when HP employees in China are expected to celebrate "New Year's".
Posted by: ~b at March 15, 2006 12:26 PM