May-day, or Labor Day in Asia here, is coming up and it’s time to do the shuffle again. The holiday shuffle.

What is the Holiday Shuffle you ask?

The holiday shuffle is something that I have only ever seen in China. What it is, is a reshuffling of regular work day to compensate for a holiday.

Let’s take May-day as our example because it is next week. May-day falls on Friday, and the government has graciously given us from May 1st to May 5th off in case you want to travel. (I know we’re in a semi-lockdown, but still.)

The shuffle happens where the Monday work we will miss is moved to this Sunday. The Tuesday work we will miss will be moved to the Saturday after the holiday.

So now my next two weeks schedule looks like this (starting tomorrow, Saturday.)

• Saturday April 25th off.
• Sunday April 26th – Thursday April 30th has class.
• May1-5th is off.
• Wednesday May 6- Sunday May 9th has class.
• Sunday May 10 the off.
• Then back to normal from Monday the 11th.

The overlying thought is. ONLY the holiday is off. (May day). Any days that you get extra must be paid back. And the government will give you a schedule of what days are to be replaced when.

My first experience with this was when we first arrived in China. I had a week of almost no work followed by a week of double shifts ( worked twice my classes) just before New Year’s, and I was expecting a lot of overtime because nobody bothers to explain what is happening to foreigners. They just expect you to know.

Needless to say there was a lot of arguments between the newly arrived workers and our boss. Only 1 of us got overtime. Because his first day was the first day of double shifts.

Every Holiday we do the Holiday Shuffle. Frustrating as it is, it’s part of life here.