Breaking news: companies don't walk their talk

Companies suck sometimes.  Take a gander at the latest reader question:

My son works for a large company that diligently avoids written policies and procedures. They say that when they require you to work on a holiday, you can get an alternative day off, but they make it damn difficult to do that. They also make it difficult to take all your vacation days. Therefore, without fail, my son has lost both vacation days and “make up” days for holidays worked. In that he is single, his company often calls upon him to work holidays because he does not have a family to be part of. He DOES NOT receive any additional pay beyond his normal wages when he works a holiday. We live in Colorado. Is there any state of federal law that relates to this behavior?

Short answer: nope.

Long answer: it depends.

First, I don't mean to call your son a fibber, but I would be extremely surprised if this large company didn't have an employee handbook that states how holiday & vacation time are handled.  He needs to find a copy and look this stuff up.  In my experience, companies usually reward employees that work on holidays with time and a half wages.  Federal (and Colorado state) law doesn't require special holiday pay or time off (or vacation, for that matter) unless government contracts are involved. 

Second, it doesn't matter if a company has written policies and procedures when they set a clear precedent.  It doesn't (generally) matter to the courts or, perhaps more importantly, to employees who have to work under their decrees.

For example, if they a) tell everyone if they work a holiday they can have another day off and b) actually follow through with this for everyone EXCEPT your son, they are obviously breaking their own "unwritten rule" and could be held accountable for discrimination for it IF the reason they are doing it (AND he can prove it) are due to your son's disability, race, creed, color, sex, religion, age (40 or over), national origin, ancestry OR, in the great state of Colorado, sexual orientation.  Yay for Colorado!

If they are following the "unwritten rule" for everyone except for your son because he's single & doesn't cause a ruckus, well....that's not illegal.  It's like Lindsay Lohan's line of leggings: stupid, but not illegal.

So what should Sonny do?

If it were me, I would do two things:

1. Put myself in my manager's place and come up with a fair solution.
2. Talk to my manager about that solution.

It doesn't have to be uncomfortable.  He could just say, "Bob, as you know I often work on holidays.  My understanding is if I work on a holiday, (insert policy in handbook here).  Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case lately; (insert specific example here).  I know that you want things to be fair, as I do.  Here is a solution I would like to propose: a rotating schedule of who gets "tapped" for holiday work when it's crunch time and a policy that the immediate next day (or Tuesday, whatever) be their day off.  That way, we all share the burden." or whatever, etc.

Third, it is neither true nor relevant that single people "do not have a family to be a part of".  Your son obviously has a parent that is his family member.  I'm single and I have a mom, brother, sister, brother in law, aunt and cousin that I spent Christmas with.  Plus I have a bunch of cats - the most important family members of all!

Seriously, even if your son was literally sitting on his couch all day on Christmas, it doesn't matter.  Our lives outside of work are none of our employer's business as long as what we do or don't do doesn't harm the company (i.e. drink 2 bottles of champagne before rolling into our forklift driving job).  If they try to use that argument with your son, that he's single and therefore doesn't "need" the holiday off, he can rest assured knowing they are not  professionals, they don't know WTF they are doing running a business and start looking for a new job ASAP.

Some companies, I tell you, if bullshit were music they would be a brass band. 

That's a Dad Quote, by the way.