Interesting. Over here Saturday officially still is a workday per the Working Time Act (Arbeitszeitgesetz - ArbZG). But as the ArbZG allows for modifications by collective agreements1) (as long as they don’t undercut the ArbZG’s minimum standards) it’s a 5 day workweek for almost everyone. And when you have a 5 day workweek, you use 5 vacation days when taking a week off.
A lot of collective agreements also stipulate that the 24th and 31th of December aren’t workdays. The 25th and 26th are national holidays anyway, as is the 1st of January.
This works out really convenient this year. And in the years this doesn’t work out, tough luck.
Where I work there’s an additional local agreement; everybody gets half a day off on Shrove Monday.
1)Tarifverträge for whole industries/sectors negotiated between the relevant employers’ associations and trade unions. Which can be supplemented by further agreements between an individual company/employer and the workers’ council/staff council.
I miss the 4-day week. Everyone, at least in the late 80’s it seemed, clocked off after lunch on Friday and didn’t turn up to work until mid-day on Monday.
I find it hard to believe that workers in Finland are behind the US when it comes to employment rights!
If you don’t normally work Saturdays, how is it considered a vacation day when you’re not there because of a vacation but not if you simply don’t come in to work on that day because it’s a weekend and therefore not on the schedule?
And where, in your opinion, would be the threshold to start “quibbling”?
If there is an agreement both parties should fulfil their respective obligations. Using a loophole that benefits one party and harms the other is acting in bad faith and should be addressed accordingly.
As for my preferred date, I’m partial to ISO but for legibility (and because computers sort them correctly when you have multiple filenames where the only changing part is the date), but working in a multinational company I’m used to put the month in text when sending human readable (aka, sorting not as important) files so 20-Dec-2024 or Dec-20-2024 or 2024-Dec-20, they all read correctly.
4-day week. Everyone, at least in the late 80’s it seemed, clocked off after lunch on Friday and didn’t turn up to work until mid-day on Monday. 
industrial revolution-era “Saint Monday”
