Don’t you get about 20 public holidays over in states throughout the year?
No, there's about 12, but most companies only honour about 6 of them, schools get the 12 off but workers typically don't.
Because I work in a hospital they honour 0 of them. (Even though I'm office staff they treat us like the medical staff and make us work on holidays).
I don't get a single holiday off in a year "for free".
I earn 6.5hrs paid time off every other week. Which works out as 3 weeks a year, but if I get sick and need a day off, it comes out of my vacation time... So to be safe, I usually just take a day off for Xmas and New Year, and save the rest until the last few weeks of my work anniversary. Otherwise if I got badly sick I wouldn't be paid.
It's quite nice working holidays like the 4th of July and Thanksgiving though because the roads during rush hour arn't as bad and noone really does any work on holidays. We come in the office and don't do anything.



