I believe if the schools are closed due to inclement weather, all government buildings should be closed and employees of other businesses should be able to take off without penalty.
The reason why I say this is because on Monday morning, Memphis, TN had 4 inches of snow on the ground and parts of neighboring state, Mississippi, had as much as 10 inches. Now I know that's small change to cities that get 12 inches or more but if you lived in Memphis, you would see why it was a big deal. We don't have the equipment needed to remove the snow from the streets. Fancy duds like that are reserved for the airport. The trucks that go around town sprinkling salt and sand on the ground do not have the money or manpower to cover every street. What makes traveling on the snow even worse is that most people in Memphis have no idea how to drive on the snow. Which means there ends up being a lot of smashed up cars before the snow melts.
I had to make the trek across town to my job and just when I was no more than two blocks away, I started to slide on the ice. Apparently, I had encountered one of those spots that the Public Works department hadn't gotten to yet. Now I had called my job several times hoping that the building was closed but only after the third time did it say that the building wouldn't open for business until 10 am. I saw no point in going back home for another hour after I had already dropped my son off so I just took my time. I used the scenic route because hey, I wasn't about to get on the overcrowded interstate and end up taking almost twice as long getting to work, plus running the risk of sliding off the road. Not cool.
The streets were pretty drivable and there was a small number of cars on the road, but every once in a while I ended up having a motorist trailing very close behind me as if there wasn't one or two other lanes to drive in. I hate tailgaters, especially in that kind of weather. I found myself pulling over at least three times to keep from suffering a rear-end collision because some fool wanted to see how fast they could drive in the snow. I'm a chance taker in most aspects but putting my life in jeopardy is not appealing to me in the least.
When I finally made it through the security gate at my job, guess what? I saw maybe 20 cars as I drove around the building to my entrance. Now this is a huge building, the size of a medium sized college campus. The parking lot has never been completely full but cars usually fill at least 90% of the available spaces, but Monday, it must have been less than 9%.
I was surprised to see someone sitting in my area when I walked down my aisle. He said that there was one other person there that was assigned to our department. Over the next hour, three other people showed up. I kept getting phone calls from my manager, who was at home with the grandkids, asking about reports and once I had finally gotten over the shock of being in a virtual ghost town, I sat down and attempted to complete what I came to do. It didn't take long to realize that I wasn't going to be able to complete my reports because part of the information I needed was not available because the lady that did it was still at home in her cozy bed. I called my manager and told her that I had nothing to report and she told me I could go home when I got ready. I left 20 minutes later, after fussing at the few people that were there about all matters of foolishness.
I've said all of that to say this--heads of city, county, state and federal government as well as other business owners, IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO TAKE YOUR KIDS TO SCHOOL--GIVE YOUR EMPLOYEES THE DAY OFF.
Please and thank you.
