World History
Today is February 29th, 2008. It is also Leap Day. While I could get excited about this special day which happens only every four years, I am having trouble being happy about it.
There is a good reason for this. It dawned on my as I came to work that I am working for free today. I get not a single penny for coming into work for Leap Day.
Like most professionals in academia, I am a salaried employee. I get the same amount of money every month no matter how many hours or days I work. It comes with the territory. However, the idea of having to work on a day that only exists every fourth year for free just seems wrong. If anything, I should be getting bonus holiday pay.
Hourly employees do not have this problem. Conversely, working on Leap Day will get the average hourly employee eight hours of extra pay today. My education is working against me!
Why do we have Leap Day? Wikipedia notes, "Although the modern calendar counts a year as 365 days, a complete revolution around the sun takes approximately 365 days and 6 hours. Every four years, an extra twenty-four hours have accumulated, so one extra day is added to that calendar to keep the count coordinated with the sun's apparent position."
Julius Caesar first came up with the Leap Day idea with his Julian Calendar reform. This does give me a good culprit to blame my free day of labor upon. It was the ancient Romans! They were real good at getting free labor out of people and their legacy lives on thousands of years later.
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World History
Working for Free on Leap Day
Today is February 29th, 2008. It is also Leap Day. While I could get excited about this special day which happens only every four years, I am having trouble being happy about it.
There is a good reason for this. It dawned on my as I came to work that I am working for free today. I get not a single penny for coming into work for Leap Day.
Like most professionals in academia, I am a salaried employee. I get the same amount of money every month no matter how many hours or days I work. It comes with the territory. However, the idea of having to work on a day that only exists every fourth year for free just seems wrong. If anything, I should be getting bonus holiday pay.
Hourly employees do not have this problem. Conversely, working on Leap Day will get the average hourly employee eight hours of extra pay today. My education is working against me!
Why do we have Leap Day? Wikipedia notes, "Although the modern calendar counts a year as 365 days, a complete revolution around the sun takes approximately 365 days and 6 hours. Every four years, an extra twenty-four hours have accumulated, so one extra day is added to that calendar to keep the count coordinated with the sun's apparent position."
Julius Caesar first came up with the Leap Day idea with his Julian Calendar reform. This does give me a good culprit to blame my free day of labor upon. It was the ancient Romans! They were real good at getting free labor out of people and their legacy lives on thousands of years later.
- Apocalypse 2012?
This is really not a history post. However, I guess it can be considered as such if one considers how many times that people in the past thought the Apocalypse was coming soon and were wrong. CNN has an article up titled Apocalypse in 2012? Date spawns...
- Chinese Famine Of 1958-1961
Chinese Famine of 1958-1961 - An account of the genesis and the course of the disastrous induced famine of the late 1950's, as part of the Great Leap Forward. Or, as many have called this horrible social movement, the Great Leap Backwards. Communism...
- How I Keep My Students Informed About Schedule Changes When School Is Closed
We've missed lots of school because of the blizzard, which means that I've had to make changes to my schedule. How do I inform my students of these changes? It's easy if you use these tools. My official class schedule is on Google...
- Does Homework Perpetuate Inequalities In Society?
We are doing a study of our homework assignments and amounts in our county. Interestingly enough it is coming from the best and the hardest working students whose parents see them taking six AP classes and working 4-5 hours a night on homework....
- More On Map Drawing
My students today were working on map skills for ancient Rome and they (as you can see below) were working on "free hand" drawing using Google Drawing. I had them split their screen so they could look at a map and draw it, but one of my students...