Many Return to Work, If Only for a Day

On the day after Christmas, the world divides itself into two disparate holiday camps: those who get to shop and those who have to work.

Fernando Flores was, unhappily, in the latter category Friday, surrounded by the motorized clank of dysfunctional car engines at a Wilshire Boulevard car dealership, the Christmas spent with his wife and family already a distant memory.

Dressed in his blue jacket and matching pants, the 40-year-old stereo installer at Lou Ehlers Cadillac talked of how just the thought of having to come to work Friday had made him push prematurely away from the holiday table the night before, ending his festivities a little earlier than he would have liked.

“Frankly, I’d rather not be here,” he said with a sigh. “But there’s no use in fighting it. That’s the work ethic in America.”

The calendar is adding insult to injury this year because Christmas and New Year’s Day fall on Thursdays, turning the final two Fridays into the weirdest of all workdays, dangling participles between the holidays and the weekends.

Sure, lots of people took Dec. 26 off: people in the film, aerospace and nonessential manufacturing industries, which are basically closed for the holiday, as well as those who thought far enough ahead to claim Friday off.

But chances are those pre-planners had to take it as a personal day.

Because these days, big business is becoming more Scrooge-like when it comes to paid holidays during the year-end holiday season.

Nearly every employer gives workers Christmas and New Year’s Day off with pay, but a Washington, D.C., research firm has found that more companies are requiring their employees to report to work on Dec. 26 and Jan. 2.

Friday was a fully paid holiday at only 36% of the 458 companies nationwide that responded to a survey by the Bureau of National Affairs--down from 46% in 1986, when Christmas last fell on a Thursday.

The Friday after New Year’s Day will be a full day off with pay at only 10% of the responding companies, down from 22% in 1987, the survey found.

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Workers at many firms were told to forget about extended holiday weekends this year, unless they had accrued personal time. Even then, lines to sign up for the day off began as early as last January.

Although President Clinton declared Friday a national holiday for the millions of federal workers nationwide, state workers weren’t so lucky--200,000 were expected at work Friday.

Said Steve Tatum, a spokesman for Gov. Pete Wilson’s office: “We’re here, working hard, doing people’s business.”

In Southern California, they were joined by millions whose job left little time for merry-making: Friday was one of the busiest times of the year for the retail business. Hospital workers, police officers, firefighters and restaurant employees were also expected at work in the usual numbers.

So were city bus drivers, stockbrokers, trash collectors and airLine workers. At the Port of Long Beach, where workers are governed by international trade demands, Friday was even busier than usual because of weeks of backed-up container traffic.

“The world won’t wait,” said Hal Hilliard, the port’s marketing manager.

For many, Friday was one of those in-between days of showing up for work and not getting much work done. Many companies allowed employees to leave early. And others didn’t expect to change the world on the day after Christmas.

“Anywhere you look, you can probably see output cut by a quarter [from] what you’d normally expect,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles. “People come to work, but they’re not motivated.”

Many studios were ghost towns as most of the movie moguls took the day off. Hughes Electronics in El Segundo is closed for two weeks, until Jan. 5. And business traffic along usually busy Wilshire Boulevard was down to a trickle.

In a huge boxy office complex in El Segundo, normally buzzing with Unocal employees, salespeople and management consultants, it was odd to see anyone walking through the halls. “Hey, there are other people here!” exclaimed one woman as she spied a person walking down the hallway.

Unclaimed newspapers were stacked in front of the desk of the security officer, who admitted that business was so slow that he was getting a chance to read all sorts of daily journals.

Some lucky laborers skipped work for a bit of the beach.

Cindy Pierusse, a self-employed divorce lawyer, was learning to roller-blade with her sister at an otherwise vacant rental stand near the Santa Monica Pier.

“We’re trying to work off all the feasting we did yesterday,” said Pierusse, 34, lacing up her white blades. “And this afternoon we’re going horseback riding.”

For the few who showed up to work at downtown office buildings, Friday was a day to dress casually, tie loose ends and chat with co-workers.

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In the hive of cubicles on the 20th floor of the Southern California Gas Co. building, screen savers drifted aimlessly on computers, a skeleton crew murmured into phone receivers, and the “Andy Griffith Show” played on the monitor in the conference room.

“It’s fantastic,” said Christopher Saunders, a manager who didn’t mind working because he’s heading to Hawaii on Sunday. “You get caught up on your stuff. You get to see and meet people you haven’t talked to in a long time. There’s no pressure.”

At the office tower next door, Will Miller, a manager at Energy Pacific, described a kind of holiday hierarchy in his office: Those with cubicles worked; those with private offices took the day off.

But he did appreciate the ample space in a structure where attendants often have to double-park cars. “I could have parked sideways,” he said.

At the almost deserted Equitable Building on Wilshire, Judy Layland kicked herself for opening her photo studio.

“Geez,” she said. “It’s deader than a doornail here. This is like a Sunday, only worse.”

The slow Friday also drove Joseph Tesfalidet crazy. By 11 a.m., the downtown parking attendant had read the paper and was long tired of the radio. He wanted more work.

“If you’re very busy, the time goes fast,” he said.

In the San Fernando Valley, 370 workers were back behind their machines Friday at Fadal Engineering in Chatsworth.

Dean de Caussin, vice president of operations, said the company gave its employees Wednesday and Thursday off. “I think the days before Christmas are of more value,” he said. “The day after is sales day.”

Workers at the unfinished Winnetka 20 movie complex hammered and shoveled to meet a February opening date.

“I don’t mind working,” said Luis Mendoza, standing near a cement mixer. “To the contrary, if there had been work yesterday, I would have worked then too.”

But Fernando Flores was having none of that.

“Christmas is too special to celebrate in just one day,” he said. “Back in Mexico, where they wait for Christmas all year long, we take an entire week.

“But not in Los Angeles. Here, it’s work, work, work.”

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Times staff writers Joe Mozingo and Jose Cardenas and correspondents Julia Scheeres and Deborah Belgum contributed to this story.