The need for long weekends

Why shouldn't the offices - Government/Private/Corporations etc. - adopt the US style of long weekends?

I agree that most of the holidays we have are religious in nature and so we cant really change the date to match a weekend. All I am saying is that we could probably work around the holidays, so that we get few contiguous off days.

Take the "New Year's day" leave of 2008. Jan 1st was a Tuesday. So invariably, many people take the day off on Dec 31st. And with the lower attendance, not much of routine work can take place in offices. In offices, we are dependent on so many of our colleagues in our team or other teams or other departments, that such leave days impacts overall productivity.

The offices could have declared holiday on Dec 31st and let the employees take a good 4 day break. Similar is the case for this year's Pongal leave. Its again on a Tuesday. And since there is a religious significance, the number of people who need to be with their family increases. And if you work in a city far away from your hometown, you have no choice but to take the day off on Monday. Effectively, there is thin attendance in the office and nothing really progresses.

If I had a say in these things, I would have that one day that everyone wants to take off, as a holiday. And if service companies are worried about the loss of revenue since they cant bill a customer, what I suggest is that they can compensate that day by getting the employees to work on a subsequent weekend in the same month or the next month at worst.

Perhaps I am taking a very one sided stance and not looking at it from a Business owner's perspective. But as long as I am on this side of the border, this is what I want.