<rant>It’s anyone’s guess whether your business will be open on Sunday. Government employees are off on Sunday, 7 October in observance of Armed Forces Day, Youm7 reports, citing an announcement by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly. Armed Forces Day falls on Saturday, 6 October, so Sunday is a replacement day for government employees.

That said, we have yet to see anything from the central bank or stock exchange suggesting it will be a day off for the private sector.

Now that they’re back from summer vacation, perhaps our elected representatives could pass a law simply stating that as a matter of policy, all holidays that fall on a weekend result in a compensatory day off the following workday. Or that they don’t. Or that “these holidays work that way, but those holidays don’t — in perpetuity.” At this point, it’s not about the lost productivity from the ‘extra’ holidays, but about the lost productivity from managers constantly debating whether (a) Sunday is a holiday and (b) accordingly, whether or not to schedule deliverables / meetings / whatever that day.

At the risk of being Scrooge: We take too many holidays. Seventeen of them in 2017, when reader Davide C. calculated that only one holiday fell on a Friday or Saturday that was not replaced with a compensatory weekday off. We have the fifth-highest number of holidays in the world, according to Davide’s research. Italy, which he (correctly) figures is our nearest European sibling (culturally, to say nothing of proximity) observes 12 days off: 11 national holidays and one local holiday unique to each city. But when an Italian national holiday falls on a Saturday or a Sunday? You just lose the day or receive extra pay, depending on your employer.

What did that mean for 2017 when all was said and done? Egypt took 17 national holidays — and Italy an average of 9.4. </rant>