I get you with this one. My mom had the day off for days like Labor Day too, but we'd always go out to the store or to get food or something and all those places were open and full of employees and it never seemed fair to me that they didn't get the day off as well. As an adult I realize it's because really only that stuff that isn't 100% customer service such as hotels, retail and food get the day off because we don't value those employees as much as those 'above' them.

Same thing with the phone calls. My mom had a work phone that she kept on 24/7 in case a customer, or more likely a co-worker, had some kind of emergency. She stopped doing that after several repeated late-night calls along the same lines of "Oh I don't expect she'll answer and I'll just leave a voice mail for the morning" type of stuff happening that really pissed her off >.>