Heinz forgoes Super Bowl spot, gives employees a day off instead

Heinz has decided not to pay the roughly $5 million for a 30-second ad spot during this year’s matchup between the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons. Instead, the company is giving its employees the day off.

Heinz also launched a petition to make the day after the Super Bowl a national holiday, which it proposes we call “Smunday.”

The company promised to send the petition to Congress if it reaches 100,000 signatures:

We can all agree that going to work the Monday after the “Big Game” on Sunday is awful. So as far as we’re concerned at Heinz, we as a nation should stop settling for it being the worst work day of the year. We don’t settle for that awesome football Sunday to be just like every other day of the year. No. We eat. We drink. And we be merry, having the tastiest times of our lives. But then the very next day we settle for that Monday being a terrible work day.

Statistics show over 16 million people call in sick or just don’t show up to work. And for those that do, productivity plummets so far that the country loses on average around $1 billion (true story). Enough with the madness. This is where YOU come in.