Why are we working on Leap Day? February 29 should be a national holiday.

Thursday should be a holiday.
Credit: iStock / Getty Images Plus / Gam1983

Tomorrow is Feb. 29. February. Twenty-Ninth. Sorry, but that sounds fake. It’s a fake date. It’s not real. To me, that date is rude for existing. Oh, it evens out the years to keep the calendar on track? Sounds fishy.

But, in all seriousness…why do we have to work on Leap Day, otherwise known as Feb. 29?

It’s a once-every-four-year day that we then have to work on? So…it’s a bonus work day?

In short: yes. There will be 262 work days this year, compared with the usual 261 or 260, depending on how weekends line up. If you’re a salaried employee — i.e. not working on an hourly basis — you’re not getting an extra day of pay.

This Thursday is now “Provide Free Labor Day.”

For three years we get lulled into the normalcy of a 28-day February, then bam, the twenty-ninth just comes out of nowhere and exists. It’s a bonus day and, as such, should be treated like a holiday. Instead of adding another day of work, it should be a day of rest. More than 40 percent of office workers report feeling burned out, according to Future Forum. And we’re just going to add a bonus workday to make it worse? Not cool.

Of course, the modern capitalist world is allergic to having a good thing for a good thing’s sake. So I know turning Leap Day into a holiday will never happen. But I’m far from the only person to bring up the idea.

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Think of the vibe shift if Feb. 29 went from being a bonus work day to a bonus holiday. Every four years we’d get a little treat. What’s better than a little surprise day off? It’d be the adult version of a snow day.

Think of the poor Leap Day babies. The New York Times wrote a whole article about these “leaplings” wanting more respect. These people struggle explaining to folks that they were born on a day that doesn’t usually exist. They get to celebrate a real birthday just once every four years. They should, at the very least, get that birthday off from work to celebrate! Make it a national holiday on their behalf.

Think about how this holiday would promote the idea of science. Once every four years, kids would wonder why they have a random day off in February. The holiday would spark children to learn about how the Earth orbits the sun in roughly 366.24 days, thus producing the need for a leap year. Create scientific awareness in a time when we need it the most, you cowards!

If we must have a Feb. 29 — and science suggests we do — then why are we treating it just like any other Thursday? It’s special! It’s a fake day invented to keep our calendar in line with space time! It’s a date that exists in only some of the years! Let’s celebrate it instead of pretending it’s ho hum.

It’s too late for 2024, but let me be the first to demand we make things right on Feb. 29, 2028. It’ll be a Tuesday. And we should not have to work.

Tim Marcin is a culture reporter at Mashable, where he writes about food, fitness, weird stuff on the internet, and, well, just about anything else. You can find him posting endlessly about Buffalo wings on Twitter at @timmarcin.

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