Snow Days

Today, as Friday, and Monday of last week, the Tribal offices were closed.  In looking out the window, I'd say Grand Ronde has accumulated somewhere between 18 and 20 inches of snow.  I know that in some parts of this country, that might not seem like much.  But in Oregon, more specifically the Willamette Valley, it is a lot, and many residents are unprepared, as evidenced by the number of cars I've seen in ditches or trapped in snow banks.
From a governing standpoint, I realize now that the subject of administrative leave has long been a sore one, especially with casino employees who don't enjoy the multiple holidays, snow days, and other reasons for letting people off work while paying them.  To be honest, I am completely sympathetic to those who might view the administrative leave as excessive, because if we're going to be handing out days off left and right, it might be viewed as unfair.  If the roads were so icy and bad that governance employees, for their safety, didn't have to show up, then why wouldn't the same line of reasoning apply to casino employees?
I already know the answer(s) to that question, having heard them in defense of the differences during an informal Council roundtable discussion last week.  They are, simply:  Spirit Mountain Casino is meant to be a 24/7/365 operation, and the Tribal Governance Center is not.  In other words, employees need to be at the casino, and governance employees do not need to be.  They really can claim to be a 9-5 operation, and with all the other governments and businesses we work with also functioning on the 40-hour work week model, there really is a difference in the time demands.  I don't expect that to satisfy some people.
Two years ago we meant to cut back on administrative leave, but that idea fell victim to organizational forgetfulness.  We had planned on traded Presidents' Day for Martin Luther King Day, and in the end we made no trades and decided to take both days off, calling Presidents' Day "Chiefs' Day".  I guess when you preside over an organization that is used to doing something as popular with employees as taking days off, changing that is never easy.
In 2007 while serving as Tribal Chair, I flew to Washington, D.C. with staff and one other Council members to meet with different bigwigs, from Interior, on off-reservation gaming.  Only hours before our meeting the metro area started snowing, not heavily.  We got the call that our meeting was cancelled, despite there being less than two inches on the ground.  I was informed then that the Federal Government, in D.C. anyway, is known for shutting down like that, without much notice, and depending on who you ask, without good reason.
Maybe it's just a government thing.