BlogHer - Vacation Deprivation, USA - Comments

Can I have the vacation days

Honey_b_Temple — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:24:07 -0500

Can I have the vacation days all those people are giving up? Pretty please?

The problem for me is that I have 3 weeks of paid vacation, but I can't afford to go anywhere. I can't save much money, and it's not for lack of trying or scrounging or cutting costs, etc. It's not even anyone's fault, really, it's just the industry (and the housing market) I'm in.

I agree that not taking those vaca days is crazy. I'll take 'em even if all I do is sit in my backyard in the sun and watch the grass grow. I never got the puritan work-ethic gene, anyway.

Crazy is right!

Cassandra — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 13:25:34 -0500

My husband and I just had a talk about this last night. They are increasing there annual vacation allotment from 2 to 3 weeks. I asked him how many weeks he can bank before he started losing it, and we got into a long discussion (I keep track of such things in our house, but he doesn't). I told him in no uncertain terms that if he got PAID for unused vacation days he couldn't save, that was one thing, but if he lost them, he damn well will be taking them! (I'm not a shrew! Really!) We have so few perks that I see vacation as a necessity!

Cass

Not JUST the workers...

Pam — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:08:11 -0500

I DON'T think it's just the workers, and I hope I didn't give that impression. But I do think as workers we're too willing to concede our earned days.

Aside: A person I know recently admitted she hadn't had a vacation in FIVE YEARS and that's CRAZY, I tellya, CRAZY. Career developing, she said. As a DOORMAT? I asked.

And I totally agree that the system is broken. TOTALLY. But I also think that the workers have more power then we admit. Our employers don't have boundaries, and we don't enforce them, either.

Yes, I know that there's a huge breach between wage slave jobs and the kind of work I do, I know that there's a whole demographic that can hardly afford vacations, I know, I know, I know. I know. I can't even BEGIN to address what's wrong there. For now, I'm just talking about people who have vacation and don't use it. Worker benefits is a MUCH bigger (and certainly more important) issue.

Yeah, social democracy. Yes, please. And I don't get paid vacation days either.

Nerd's Eye View

It makes me wonder whether

iasshole — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:31:50 -0500

It makes me wonder whether people on your side of the pond do not realise the worth of time off.

Oh, I think we all dream about it. But many of us are super-replaceable. And there's no respect for boundaries. The emails keep flooding in. And if you say, I don't want to get 100 emails a day while I'm on vacation, then someone will step up who will.

I think for some people, the two weeks aren't worth it, when there are fifty weeks when you have to feed your family and pay your rent.

I concede that this is a way that our culture is totally busted. But please don't just put it on the workers. This is a complex issue that doesn't just mean Americans are all Type-A psychos.

Personally, I would love to see our society go more socialist. But for now I would just be happy to have *paid* vacation dangled in front of us. I heard on NPR yesterday that something like a quarter of workers must take time off at their own expense. Losing pay, then paying for gas and airfare, hotel, food, whatever else...it's a hard choice. Even just staying home and not getting paid, well, if you're on the razor's edge already, that's just scary and not worth it.

Absolutely crazy!

Lia — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:08:12 -0500

Absolutely crazy! Not taking your official allotted holidays! Your argument about liking it to voluntarily taking a pay cut, is excellent. It makes me wonder whether people on your side of the pond do not realise the worth of time off. The notion that employees gave up 540 million days of holidays boggles my mind.

What do you think would happen if you guys were given, as is customary in many European countries, six weeks of vacation and ten days of bank and religious holidays of paid vacation a year?

I remember when I came to work in Germany years on back. I started my job in October and the company closed down for ten days between Christmas and New Yearâ€™s. I couldnâ€™t believe my luck that only after two and a half months work I qualified for these holidays. Maybe this is why, twenty-five years later, Iâ€™m still living here.

And, everyone (employed, unemployed, and those living on social assitance) have full medical insurance. That is why it is so important to consider issues concerning quality of life (e.g. employment, education, health insurance) in your next presidental election. Over here, and admittedly the European press is not always kind, it seems as if the last six years have done little to improve the quality of life for the majority of citizens.

lia from luebeck, germany

Author of the media safe 101 page on the Red Tent Blog and the personal yum yum cafe

Vacation Deprivation, USA

Pam — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 10:13:11 -0500

Last month the Center for Economic and Policy Research released its No-Vacation Nation report, which reveals that the U.S. is â€œthe only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation.â€ Those that do have vacation time arenâ€™t taking it all, or are taking working vacations.--World Hum

We all want more vacation, but the surprising statistic is that US workers gave back close to 574 million vacation days in 2006, depriving themselves of much-needed breaks, according to Expedia's annual vacation deprivation survey. On average, Americans leave at least four days unclaimed annually. And the number of vacation days employees are skipping this year is forecasted to increase by one over last year.--Ere.Net

While employed men are still more likely than their female counterparts to work more than 40 hours per week, this year, men and women receive about the same number of vacation days from their employer. However, men are more likely than women to leave some vacation days on the table, and to feel guilty about taking time off from work.--Expedia's Vacation Deprivation Study (pdf)

Okay, seriously, cut that out. First of all, you wouldn't ask for a pay cut just because you're too busy. When you lose your two weeks vacation time because you didn't use it, you're handing two weeks pay back to your employer. So knock it off.

Hols are good for work, as any sane European will tell you. After one week of decompressing and one week of rejuvenating, your productivity shoots up. Get more time off, and you're panting to go back to work. When was the last time you felt like that?--talk talk talk

Now, check out the chart in this post..

After reviewing the paid vacation and holiday policies of every advanced country you can think of and a couple you can't, they find that we're the only industrialized naton not to legislate any paid time off and holidays to our workforce. --Ezra Klein

What are you going to do with the time you have? Use it well. Try the work detox program from Slow Leadership.

Have someone monitoring you all the time, with permission to call you to order sharply. All addicts are devious and very ready to find ways to feed their addictions in secret. If you find yourself hiding some work-based activityâ€”or, much worse, lying to conceal itâ€”be very afraid. Your addiction is serious.

There's hope. Some employers are looking at new ways to deal with free time deprived workers.

Employees at the online movie retailer often leave for three, four, even five weeks at a time and never clock in or out. Vacation limits and face-time requirements, says Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings, are "a relic of the industrial age."--Mercury News

I haven't held a full time job in nearly ten years and vacation deprivation is exactly the reason. As I get older, I do worry about having regular contributions to a 401k. I do worry about the increasing costs of individual health insurance policies. But when the days get torn off the calendar, I worry more about my sanity, about my mental health, about my quality of life. I'm lucky - I've been able to patch together a living doing work I like, I've been able to travel in European sized bites of time. But I worry for my compatriots who feel torn between that two week road trip to see the National Parks and the new client. Finland has not crumbled in to the sea because of their generous national vacation policy. Austria has not shortened its life expectancy. And you? You need a vacation. You've earned it, it's part of your compensation package. I don't want to hear your excuses, get outta here. Go on, summer's coming, get yourself to the beach or camping or something, anything. You'll be a better worker for the rest, I promise.

Pam blogs about travel and other adventures at Nerd's Eye View. She was "on vacation" for five months last year and seems to have survived.