Red, White and Working : Toiling Away on a Demi-Holiday

It’s like the Friday after Thanksgiving. Or those awful, slow weeks when Christmas falls on a Wednesday.

Get ready for the third of July.

“I don’t even know why we’re bothering to come,” sighed stock trader Dennis LoPresti, who--like lots of people, apparently--must work Monday. “It’s not really much of a day.”

The Pacific Stock Exchange, where LoPresti serves on the board of governors, will be open half a day Monday, and LoPresti will be there, honoring the demi-holiday by shunning his ordinary uniform of coat and tie in favor of a sport shirt.

Also open Monday are banks, courts, government offices, post offices and many businesses.

“I’m happily playing the martyr,” said David Dickstein, who plans to work alone so the rest of the media relations staff at Pacific Telesis Group can have the day off. “No, I’m being a team player.”

He’s not the only one. While some of Patagonia’s Ventura employees are skipping off to nearby beaches and Dodger Stadium workers get the day off because the team is on the road, workers will still keep banker’s hours at Great Western Financial Corp. in Chatsworth.

The bank--along with its competitors--is required by law to stay open on all but federal holidays, so that customers have access to their money. Spokesman Jacques Clafin, who, like his colleagues, will be working Monday, insists this does not bother anyone.

“You can’t celebrate the Fourth on the third, because it would be downright unpatriotic,” Clafin said.

For employees at Disneyland, it will be just another day at the park. More than 10,000 people have been called in to work at the Anaheim theme park, and for many, the day will be part of a 60-hour week, said spokesman John McClintock.

“I don’t think many staff members will be taking any vacations this weekend,” McClintock said.

Not so at Litton Industries in Woodland Hills. Personnel director Nancy Thacker decided three years ago to give employees the day off.

“It’s kind of foolish to have people come to work Monday and not come to work Tuesday,” she said. “It is really very disruptive.”

Next year, when the Fourth falls on Thursday, Litton employees luck out again.

Likewise, cyberspace addicts will have to wait until Wednesday if their Toshiba computer crashes Monday. Irvine-based Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., which normally provides technical support around the clock daily, will give its techies a breather and close all of its divisions Monday and Tuesday.

Then there are those who are working on purpose.

Cindy Fierro, a senior marketing manager, will be taking her laptop home to Manhattan Beach, where she will be writing and practicing a presentation. Her husband gets baby-sitting duty for their three children.

“He’s got instructions that he’s the entertainment until I emerge,” she said.

Toy maker Fred Kort will be working to perfect new soap bubble blowers before a big sales meeting. He is making his three sons work too.

“You can’t have the old man working and have the kids hit the beach,” he said.

Some companies, Solomon-like, are granting the day off to certain employees but not others. For example, about half the staff of Cruttenden Roth, a Newport Beach-based securities firm, will be working, President Byron Roth said.

Then there are those who will face the weekend knowing that they not only have to work, but will be kept busy.

Kevin Hanson, a tennis pro at the Los Angeles Tennis Club, is expecting more than 50 kids enrolled in junior clinics.

“Monday is usually the slowest day of the week,” Hanson said. “But with the long weekend it could be jumping.”

The Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel hotel is planning to have a ratio of almost two staff members to every room for one of the busiest weekends of the year.

Visitors are also expected to descend on South Coast Plaza, where Saks Fifth Avenue General Manager Judy Bullockus expects a big shopping day.

“It’s quite the mall for tourism,” Bullockus said, “and we usually have a lot international clients this time of year.”

Paul Geller of Sherman Oaks receives no respite, either. He is the production manager at the Hollywood Bowl and has not been to an Independence Day barbecue in years, never mind being off work the day before.

What’s worse, he sometimes doesn’t even watch all of the Bowl’s fireworks outdoors because he has to coordinate the cues for the program from inside the dome. The Bowl has fireworks planned for Monday.

Geller says he does get some amusement, though. One year the fireworks display was so powerful it blew a toilet off the wall in one of the Bowl’s restrooms.

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Times staff writer Julio Moran contributed to this report.