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The question of "Why is the city working on Memorial Day?" comes up from time to time

The city's 950 full-time employees would love to have the day off for Memorial Day, but the reality is that even if it were a “holiday” for city staff, virtually our entire police force, fire department, EMS crews, public works folks, parks division staff and many, many others would be required to work to pro...vide service to our residents and visitors so that they could enjoy and celebrate Memorial Day.

Just as it takes extra work to get ready to host Thanksgiving Dinner, so does it take extra work to make sure that our residents and visitors have a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day in Myrtle Beach. For example, with Thanksgiving Dinner, someone still needs to do the cooking on Thursday, set the table, wash the dishes and be the host and hostess for the event. And that’s what we are doing on Memorial Day, which is one of our busiest times of the year. Not only are we working to serve the public, but we also are responsible for a couple of events to celebrate Memorial Day on Monday, so our staff members will be working Monday to make sure that others can enjoy Memorial Day as intended.

By the way, our Solid Waste Division staff frequently work on holidays (not all of them), because it’s frankly easier to do the work on the regular schedule, rather than to take a day off and then work twice as hard (or more) the next day to make up for the time missed. In most cases, taking a day off doesn’t mean that the work disappears. Especially in public service, the work still needs to be accomplished, even on holidays. Even on those days which are city holidays, someone is always working. It goes with the territory of 24-hour public service.