Kodak Employees Used a 13 Month Calendar

JUN

13

It sounds weird and not employee friendly but did you know that people who worked for Kodak followed a 13 month calendar? Kodak used the International Fixed Calendar.

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The International Fixed calendar (also known as the Cotsworth plan, the Eastman plan, the 13 Month calendar or the Equal Month calendar) is a solar calendar proposal for calendar reform designed by Moses B. Cotsworth, who presented it in 1902.[1] It provides for a year of 13 months of 28 days each, with one or two days a year belonging to no month or week. It is therefore a perennial calendar, with every date fixed always on the same weekday. Though it was never officially adopted in any country, it was the official calendar of the Eastman Kodak Company from 1928 to 1989.[2]

The calendar year has 13 months with 28 days each, divided into exactly 4 weeks [(13 * 28) = 364]. An extra day added as a holiday at the end of the year, sometimes called “Year Day,” brings the total to 365 days. Each year coincides with the corresponding Gregorian year, so January 1 in the Cotsworth calendar always falls on Gregorian January 1.[3] Twelve months are named and ordered the same as those of the Gregorian calendar, except that the extra month is inserted between June and July, and called Sol. Situated in mid-summer, the name of the new month was chosen in homage to the sun.[4] But it escaped notice that the sun’s prominence around June and July holds for the Northern hemisphere only.

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Kodak’s founder George Eastman became a huge supporter of the new calendar and it was implemented in 1928. What are the advantages of using it?

The several advantages of The International Fixed Calendar are mainly related to its organization:

• Every year has exactly 52 weeks divided in 13 months.
• Each month has exactly 28 days divided in 4 weeks.
• The calendar is the same every year (perennial), unlike the annual Gregorian calendar, which differs from year to year. Hence, scheduling is easier for institutions and industries with extended production cycles.
• Every day of the month falls on the same weekday in each month—the 17th always falls on a Tuesday, for example.
• Statistical comparisons by months are more accurate, since all months contain exactly the same number of business days and weekends; likewise for comparisons by 13-week quarters.
• Thirteen equal divisions of the year are superior to twelve unequal divisions in terms of monthly cash flow in the economy, or so supporters of the IFC argued

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