I also remember at one startup when I asked the payroll guy how many pay periods there were that year, he scoffed "26, it's always 26." Well, not with years having fractionally more than 26 ^H^H^H 52 weeks there aren't.
For those who work on this day (medical professionals, etc.) the rate is different (being a holiday and all), so they just get paid by the hour, regardless of what they do throughout the year.
Your payroll can now be weekly, biweekly, monthly, or whatever you want: you still get the same amount of money per month. This is nice because you don't get weirdness with things like rent/mortgage payments which are monthly. For example, for those who get paid biweekly, you get two months a year where you get an extra payment. This is silly and leads to more difficult accounting and budgeting.
Monthly is nice, but lots of your expenses are likely one a week-by-week basis: groceries, entertainment, etc.
Weekly is AFAIAC the nicest: it is the easiest to budget because it's as close to the common denominator as possible. However, it is not the LCD, so it still has the weird problem of getting more money in some months vs others.
Of course, changing the calendar isn't a realistic plan anyway (Americans still won't accept the freaking metric system, that's too much change! and of course there would be costs to having a calendar different than the rest of the world, unless we get EVERYONE to change). But making _everyone_ have off is even less realistic. So payroll systems would still probably need to account for the days.
But I do like the idea of a day or two that literally everyone has off, and would subscribe to your newsletter.
Wikipedia confirms "The Islamic calendar is now used primarily for religious purposes, and for official dating of public events and documents in Muslim countries". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_calendar#Uses
Do you know how they get away with this, or have any other insight?
That is my only guess...
From here: http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/Glossary.asp?Button1=P#profession...
professional exemption
A person employed in a professional capacity means any employee who meets all of the following requirements:
Who is licensed or certified by the State of California and is primarily engaged in the practice of one of the following recognized professions: law, medicine, dentistry, optometry, architecture, engineering, teaching, or accounting, or
If I had to hazard a guess but I would suspect it's because people in those professions are expected to be salary. Salary is easier to budget out in longer increments as the base pay amounts per pay period typically don't vary. (annual salary / pay periods = pay amount)