Everyone gets time off. But no one gets to choose.

Elephant in the Room · Five-minute read

Thursday is a holiday. Saturday becomes a working day.

Apparently, we have been given a break.

A longer weekend might suit some people. Fair enough. But moving a working day is hardly the same as giving someone more time off. And it raises a bigger question: how much say do we actually have over our own time?

We count holidays. We rarely ask whether people get to enjoy them.

Bangladesh’s original government holiday calendar for 2026 listed 28 days. Eleven overlapped with weekends, leaving 17 additional weekdays off for government employees. So “nearly a month off” does not tell the whole story. Private workplaces also follow different arrangements.

Still, the number is only part of the issue. The more uncomfortable question is why so much of our time away from work has to happen together.

Everyone is off. Everyone must go.

Eid arrives. Puja arrives. A long break appears.

Now comes the plan: visit relatives, attend gatherings, travel somewhere, make the most of it. Everyone else has the same idea.

The road is crowded. The destination is crowded. The hotel costs more. Even visiting family can become a schedule of obligations.

You finally get away from work and find yourself managing another timetable.

None of this makes family visits or festivals bad. Many people genuinely look forward to them. The problem begins when participation becomes an expectation and choosing otherwise requires an explanation.

Why aren’t you coming? Why are you staying home? What will people think?

Sometimes, you simply want to sleep.

The elephant in the room

I think our holiday culture reflects something deeper about our socially conservative society: we struggle to accept that an individual’s idea of a good life may differ from the group’s.

We understand family duties. We understand religious occasions. We understand an office closing for everyone.

We seem less comfortable with someone saying, “I want a few days for myself.”

Perhaps they want to travel when it is quiet. Perhaps they want to read, spend time with their partner or do absolutely nothing. Their choice does not need to be productive, impressive or approved by relatives.

Yet personal time can feel like something we must justify.

That attitude matters at work too. If an employee needs a national occasion before they can comfortably disconnect, how much freedom does their leave balance actually represent?

A holiday can become expensive work

When large numbers of people travel together, demand rises faster than the available rooms, seats and services can expand.

The result is predictable: higher prices, queues and less choice.

This is more than a personal complaint. Research published in Economics of Transportation in 2025, using over 18 million airfare observations, found substantial travel premiums around US public holidays. It supports the basic argument that concentrated holiday demand can make travel more expensive. It does not tell us the exact premium in Bangladesh.

Higher prices are not automatically a scam. Limited capacity has a cost.

But illegal overcharging and misleading offers are separate problems. During the March 2026 Eid rush, authorities fined bus operators following excessive fare charges, according to reporting on enforcement drives.

When you have limited days off and few alternatives, walking away becomes harder.

So you spend more, wait longer and return tired. The break may have been memorable. Whether it was restful is another question.

Annual leave needs to exist in practice

Bangladesh already has paid annual leave provisions. For eligible adult workers in specified sectors, section 117 of the Labour Act generally provides one day of annual leave per 18 days worked, after a year of continuous service.

The question is whether people can actually use it with reasonable control over the timing.

Can you request a quiet week away without guilt? Can your team cover your work? Can you stop answering calls? Or does taking leave mean completing extra work beforehand and returning to a backlog afterwards?

A 2025 review covering 32 studies across nine countries found that vacations improve wellbeing, with psychological detachment from work particularly important.

A calendar full of holidays cannot guarantee that detachment.

Give people a choice

Simply cutting public holidays would be an easy response, and potentially an unfair one.

Shared holidays have real value. Families need overlapping time off. Religious and national occasions matter. Removing days without replacing them with usable paid leave could leave employees worse off.

But we can question whether every additional closure needs to happen nationwide on the same date.

Could some days become employee-selected paid leave, without reducing the total entitlement? Could employers plan cover properly? Could more people choose quieter travel periods while others keep their festival breaks?

That would not eliminate holiday crowds. It could give people an alternative.

The elephant in the room is our discomfort with letting people choose.

We are willing to announce when everyone should rest. Are we equally willing to let someone decide for themselves?