Kevin Wilson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 03/02) - Some jobs respect holidays.

If you work at a bank, for the government, or at a school, chances are you spent the last four-and-a-half days relaxing, indulging, and generally kicking back.

Mitchell Madsen shows off a tasty Easter meal of...popcorn. Madsen and his colleagues at the Capitol Theatre kept the reels rolling during the Easter weekend - Kevin Wilson/NNSL photo

Alas, many lines of work don't permit people the luxury of the long weekend.

Crime doesn't take a holiday, and neither do cops. You never know when fire might strike, which means firefighters are always on call.

News is even less respectful of statutory holidays than it is of deadlines. Invariably, you'll find some ink-stained wretch pecking away at his or her keyboard.

The world, it seems, is divided into two groups; those who get to enjoy the holidays, and those who work to make sure the first group don't get a bored on their time off.

Consider the Capitol Theatre. Someone, or several someones, have to make sure the Easter Sunday movie-going public has tickets, popcorn and clean seats to put their bums in. People like Jocelynn Losier. From 6 p.m. until closing time Easter Sunday, she made stood guard at the theatre ticket booth, making sure people got their ducats for The Rookie, Ice Age, and Men With Brooms.

Does working stat holidays bother her? Does it cramp her social life?

"Not really. I work in the box office, so I'm out of here at ten most nights," she says.

The Capitol is open 364 days of the year. Losier says that holidays are usually slow, but "we were pretty busy for the late show today."

Tragically, Losier did not manage to tuck into an Easter turkey or ham before she started her shift.

Still, working holidays does have its advantages. Just ask "butter master" Mitchell Madsen. Mitchell stood sentry at the popcorn machine Sunday night, starting at the same time as his ticket-taking colleague. Unlike Losier, Madsen managed to tear into Easter dinner before he came to work.

"I wanted to work this holiday," for one simple reason, he says. "The money. Oh yeah, just the money," he adds with a laugh.