Turns out this is a specialty of the UAE government.

The nine-day holiday.

For the third time in our five years here, all government workers have off nine consecutive days. Well, actually, one of those previous episodes, in 2009, was 10 consecutive paid days off. And another was six days.

Which is mind-boggling, really.

In the U.S., a four-day weekend is considered a guilty pleasure. And a rare one, calling for a holiday to fall on a Thursday or a Tuesday. Then more than a few workers get the Friday or the Monday off (or simply take it off), making for four consecutive days.

Here in the UAE … a four-day holiday is for lightweights.

Three multi-day holidays make possible nine-day government shutdowns (well, pretty much), when worked with weekends.

Both Eids (Al Fitr and Al Adha) typically are three-day holidays. And National Day, on December 2, is at least two days, and sometimes three.

Also, Eid Al Adha (sometimes known as “Big Eid”) comes just after Arafat Day, another religious holiday. So.

What happens is, if one of the big three bits of off time falls in the middle of the work week, the tendency hear is to patch over the one or two other non-holiday workweek days and make it one monster batch of paid vacation.

This year, Eid Al Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, the fasting month, is today. Thus, Tuesday and Wednesday are offdays, too. (Even though the private sector generally treats this Eid Al Fitr as a two-day holiday.)

So, if you’re off Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, and the work week here, remember, is Sunday through Thursday … why not make Sunday a paid day off, and Thursday, too, thereby linking the three religious holiday days with two weekends.

It works like this: Friday-Saturday, regular weekend. Sunday a holiday, because who wants to come in to work one day when Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are Eid? And then, so close to the weekend, why have government workers come in just to work Thursday, so that is an off day too, leading right back to another Friday-Saturday weekend.

Voila. Nine days off. And this is in addition to the six weeks of vacation most (all?) government workers get.

(In 2010, it was Eid Al Adha that led to six consecutive off dayts; in 2011, it was Eid Al Fitr and nine off days; in 2013 it was Eid Al Adha and National Day; and how did we live through 2012 without one long extra holiday period?)

How does that work? Doesn’t so much time off hurt the economy? Cause a dent in the Gross Domestic Product? Make it difficult for anyone who was hoping to do any government business this week?

It works because the UAE is extremely wealthy. All the oil, remember? Only 1 million citizens.

It also works because the private sector, which will work Sunday-Wednesday-Thursday this week, is pretty much all expatriates, whether westerners or subcontinenters or non-Emirati Arabs.

Most government jobs are held by Emiratis, and Emiratis hold the large majority of government jobs.

At the newspaper, which is government owned, we don’t suddenly stop publishing, but everyone who works any of the five days from Sunday through Thursday gets a lieu day — a paid day off at some other time.

It’s a sweet deal. But I’m not entirely sure the UAE’s government workers know how rare it is, too.