Yesterday was supposed to be a religious holiday that we are used to and we always got a day off for it, only this year, it was decided that we have to work unlike other countries who took the day off. And this morning while I was driving to work, I was listening to the radio where they were talking about postponing schools till after Eid, but the spokesman from the education ministry announced that school year will start in its scheduled time and that there would be no consideration that it starts at the same time as Ramadan and arguing that we should not be a lazy nation!!

But what about the consideration for the simplest rights one should have and enjoy?? If you want to cut all public holidays and turn the whole year to working days, why don’t you consider increasing vacation days the Jordanian worker is allowed to take????

A Jordanian worker has only 14 days a year for a vacation; when exactly is this going to change?

Most countries have 21 working days or one calendar month a year and I cannot think of a good reason why we are still stuck at the 14 days?

People working in Jordan have to accumulate their vacations for a couple of years to be able to take one decent vacation and they look forward to these public holidays that are scattered around the year so that they can enjoy a random day out with the family or just resting at home and now they are taking that away from us!!

It pisses me off when I see the country flooded with tourists and expats during the summer for a month or so while we are stuck in our long working days and not even able to take a few days off to see relatives and enjoy the summer like the rest of the world because all what we have is 14 days, and we try to keep them for major issues during the year or to add them to the balance of last year to have a good long needed vacation. These expats and tourists coming from other countries have jobs too, but they are not enslaved by these jobs and they have good vacation balance every year which allows them to travel and refresh and they go back to work energized and willing, which makes them more tolerable to difficult working conditions, while their peers in Jordan have piled up fatigue and frustration because they cannot afford to take unpaid leaves and the labor law does not give them better options … and the world wonders why Jordanians frown and have a big “kashrah” and do not smile …

In France, they reduced working hours to 7 instead of 8, which allowed them to introduce shifting systems that provided more work opportunities for the jobless, and they also increased the annual vacation days to 35, and did you know that in France, universities do not have summer semesters because people should rest and have fun in the summer which is a concept that does not exist here!!

In Cyprus, donkeys have lunch breaks because they have the right to relax and take some time off work as this is the simplest right any creature needs, but in Jordan; we are canceling public holidays because we should not be a lazy nation … give me a break!!!

This guy from the education ministry argued that they do not want to reschedule the school year because we should not be a lazy nation, but did they even spend one minute to consider the huge traffic problems that schools create? add that to Ramadan traffic problems and the excessive heat along with an angry populace, well; these are the ingredients of a disaster waiting to happen if you ask me …

With all the problems that we have in Jordan, we need 100 human rights organizations because one will not be able to cover them all …