Nobody focused on work, everybody watching the clock, many stressing about impending travel mayhem. The day before Thanksgiving in the US. And weather has a way of wreaking havoc.
My employer officially sets office closures at noon as part of the annual corporate calendar. That is pretty good, it gives a chance to get out in the afternoon, critical for connecting flights. Commuting to the office for an unproductive 3 or 4 hours is tedious, though.
My wife’s employer waits until the day and then the executives think employees will be thrilled when a mid-morning email goes out allowing departure at 3 pm. That is about as good as nothing.
Closing all-day Wednesday would mean that Tuesday would be the new Wednesday.
One client of mine just closes all week, which I love. When I lived in China, the opportunity to have week-long holidays with offices closed, even at the cost of weekend make-up days in China’s odd system, was so much more refreshing than taking a regular week off when emails keep flowing in. Not all businesses practically or financially can do this.
So, what’s an employer to do?
I have always had Wed. through Sun off, and although it was great to have the days off, it was really too short of a time to go anywhere (You are probably laughing at this). I found myself taking “personal” days off on the Monday and Tuesday preceding Thanksgiving in order to squeeze in a good trip.
Since the recession started, we have all been given two “furlough” days for that Mon. and Tues. These are unpaid days off. This has made trip planning a little more guilt free. The problem of making it back on Sunday which is one of the biggest travel days of the year,still remains.
I agree with you that a day off, or afternoon off should be planned and announced ahead of time. The seeming largesse of “allowing” employees to leave early when they are goofing off anyway seems smarmy.
Not much they can do as the line n the sand has to be drawn someplace. Even if they gave the whole week off you’d want to leave early the Friday before. In the good old days everyone would just break out the scotch at 10 Am in the office and call it a day “Madmen style”
We get out at 3pm Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday are paid holidays. I work for a Fortune 500 company.