२९ ऑगस्ट, २०१९

"Americans left 768 million days of paid time off unused last year, according to research released by the U.S. Travel Association."

"The study found that 55 percent of Americans did not use all of their paid vacation time. Of the time they took, U.S. workers used nine days to travel. More than half of Americans did not take a leisure trip of more than four nights over the past year, according to a report from Allianz Global Assistance. The travel insurance company said millennials were leading the so-called micro-cation trend, with 72 percent taking at least one trip of fewer than five nights. Nearly 20 percent of those surveyed in May said their longest trip in the past year was three to four nights long. The same survey found that 28 percent of Americans did not take a leisure trip of any length."

From "What does America have against vacation?" (WaPo).

Not one word about the environment in that article. Why not celebrate the status quo? If we were traveling, WaPo should shame us for the impact on climate change, so why is the failure to travel treated like a problem? Maybe people like their day-to-day life — working, living at home, near friends and family, doing what is familiar. Isn't that what most people have done throughout human history and prehistory?

१४६ टिप्पण्या:

rehajm म्हणाले...

It’s a Why can’t we be more like France? day today.

Phil 314 म्हणाले...

Maybe people like to work. Taking all of your PTO doesn’t get you anymore money. And of course, there is this thing called “Weekends” that allows one a break from work and opportunities for vacation and travel.

How many state parks could you visit on a weekend?

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
RK म्हणाले...

"Keep on Traveling!" - Rick Steves, PBS travel show producer.

I wonder if he'll be shamed to stop saying that.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves म्हणाले...

I cannot afford a decent vacation. Like a real one to Europe in a nice hotel. I can take a crap vacation where I sleep in the rental car. or stay in a youth hostel - no thank you.
Flying - while I appreciate the speed, is not glamorous. To say the least. Have you been on a plane recently? Nobody is cleaning them. Ever. They land, they take off, they land, they take off. Cleaning crew? No time for that. Flying is the new bus.

With all the Justin Beiber crowding - isn't the lack of travel a good thing?

Ignorance is Bliss म्हणाले...

The quoted section makes it sound like people are losing their vacation days by not taking them.

How many of those unused PTO days were sick days, which the person didn't take because they were not sick? How many were vacation days that they were allowed to carry over to the next year? I know in some union contracts, if you have leftover PTO, you can get cash back, and if you save that up until the few years before you retire, it ups your pension.

MikeR म्हणाले...

Hear, hear. I hate travelling. I'm about to fly cross-country to visit my mother, and they all want to do stuff while I'm there. "Maybe a museum!" I'll go if I have to, but hanging with the family is my ideal vacation.

Paco Wové म्हणाले...

"why is the failure to travel treated like a problem"

If there were no problem, what would the media hector and nag you about?

Lloyd W. Robertson म्हणाले...

It is a long-standing belief of the left that what "ordinary people" really want is leisure--not necessarily a life full of demanding but satisfying work in the arts or whatever--work that is freely chosen--but a life of the idle rich, one beach after another, shopping. Now people are being promised a "basic income" while not working, presumbably to play video games and take drugs. Is this really a satisfying life?

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

Forget about traveling; this means that Americans are not taking vacation days coming to them, even to just stay home.

"Maybe people like to work. Taking all of your PTO doesn’t get you anymore money."

No, it means you're losing money: you could take time off (if only to stay home) and still be paid. In failing to take paid leave time, you're working more hours for no additional money.

I think people don't take leave time because they feel pressured not to take days off, for fear they will be perceived as slackers, or as expendable. Or, they're so overloaded with work to complete they simply can't take time off they would otherwise prefer to take.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

My favorite part of traveling is just hanging out in the hotel room.

RNB म्हणाले...

Oh, come on! You know the reason for this latest outrage: 'Evil End-stage Capitalism!' (Other possible explanations for the WaPo: 'Racism!' and 'TRUMP!!!'

Lucid-Ideas म्हणाले...

"so why is the failure to travel treated like a problem?"

Because you're not doing double-think properly. Travel is only approvable if you're a $200k plus couple with replacement children, stable jobs and ample vacation time tempered with the appropriate guilt to take it WHILE flagellating about it on twitter and insta.

It doesn't count without the appropriate mea culpa. If appropriate however, feel free to be as European as you want.

320Busdriver म्हणाले...

"My favorite part of traveling is just hanging out in the hotel room."
In other words, a "Slam clicker"

AllenS म्हणाले...

I worked with a man who simply just quit taking vacation time off. The company told him he had to start taking his vacation time off because he had 9 months of vacation time saved up. I left shortly thereafter so I'm not sure what happened. But, GEEEEEZ, 9 months of vacation time saved?

MadisonMan म्हणाले...

I travel for work. Traveling for vacation is therefore very much work-like for me. I suspect I'm not alone in that view. I care very little about how the WaPo thinks about this. I doubt they have interviewed people that work there for this article.

Fernandinande म्हणाले...

Maureen Dowd's favorite part of traveling is just freaking out in the hotel room.

I'm Full of Soup म्हणाले...

Vacation industry publishes study which claims that we aren't taking enough vacations! What's next? Will the Society of Civil Engineers publish a study which claims our infrastructure requires many trillions more in govt spending?

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Play for pay jobs. I never took vacation.

traditionalguy म्हणाले...

Golf solves everything. You can play a different course each day. And you get to meet interesting and sociable golfers. And then you shower and rejoin the others for a fine dinner. Rinse and repeat.

Start with Amelia Island Plantation and Hilton Head.

tim maguire म्हणाले...

A lot of times (more often than in the past? I don't know), people take 3- or 4-day weekends in order to squeeze the most out of their vacation days. But there is something about the full-week off that lets you separate and recharge in a way these shorter vacations don't.

gilbar म्हणाले...

So, where I've worked.....
A) if you don't use your vacation, it accumulates
B) if, when you terminate your employment; you have Vacay left, you get PAID for it
C) there is some (LARGE) maximum number of vacation days, after which they no longer accumulate

SO!
Of these 'unused days' that people aren't using
A) how many of them are being held in reserve for next years vacay?
B) how many of them are being paid out IN CASH, when people terminate their employment?
C) how many of them are being LOST?

The article ACTS like it's All part C), and they're being lost
MY GUESS is DAMN FEW of them are being lost.

Since i'd been at my Insurance Company since 1996, I got MORE than one day of Vacay for each pay period (2 weeks) that i worked. I'd ALWAYS have about 12 days in reserve. That didn't mean i wasn't taking Vacay, it meant i WAS taking Vacay: At the rate i was earning it.
If Something came up, like a fishing trip; i'd ALWAYS have Vacay available; MUCH better than using it all up as soon as you got it.

When I retired last year, i got paid out for my non used days; How did i NOT use them?

gilbar म्हणाले...

That's RIGHT, i got MORE THAN 26 days of PAID VACATION each year, and I'd TAKE THEM, too!

Fernandinande म्हणाले...

The United States, on the other hand — on the very worst hand — mandates no paid vacation or paid holidays.

Aww, the authorette wants the State to mandate personal leisure time. That is so cute.

Ralph L म्हणाले...

they all want to do stuff while I'm there.

Communal activities actually release hormones that reinforce social bonds--until someone pisses someone off.

I had a boss who thought weekends and holidays were for getting work done without the distractions of telephone calls. He had some major dental work done that required his jaws to be sown shut for a couple weeks. Must have been hell for him. He had both a US and international beeper.

Beasts of England म्हणाले...

I only work five or six hundred hours per year; time off seems superfluous.

gilbar म्हणाले...

Robert Cook (who, apparently has Become a TOTAL LIAR), Lied, saying...
No, it means you're losing money:

You're A LIAR Cook (you didn't used to be).
IF you TAKE your PTO, you're getting the same money; NOT MORE
IF you DON'T Take your PTO, you get that time in a check when you terminate

Maybe you're not a Liar, maybe you're Stupid. When did you become stupid? You didn't used to be

Left Bank of the Charles म्हणाले...

First the travel post, then the anti-travel post.

Birkel म्हणाले...

"...shame us..."

No.
Not at all.

Otto म्हणाले...

I did it more for my wife and kids.

Rosa Marie Yoder म्हणाले...

Tim is right; many of us prefer to use our vacation time for long weekends. Before retirement, I rarely worked more than 3-4 days a week during Summer unless a major project interfered.

I'm not one to travel because hotels are filthy no matter how many stars they get from travel agents and the like... ugh!

gilbar म्हणाले...

My manager would take Friday Afternoons as PTO, which came to 1 day per pay period; so, she was STILL accumulating PTO days (She'd been there since 1987).

This was Terrific for me! On account of Because that'd mean that I'd have Friday Afternoons to listen to the Cubs on the Radio before going home.

{Mutual Companies are REQUIRED BY LAW, NOT To Turn a Profit.... IT'S THE LAW}

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent म्हणाले...

As many have noted, PTO accumulates and can be held for early retirement, catastrophic illness or family emergencies. As many have noted, the WaPo are idiots.

daskol म्हणाले...

My favorite part of traveling is just hanging out in the hotel room.

I hope you choose your hotels very carefully and that you choose places with extremely high standards for cleanliness, otherwise you just enjoy laying about in other people's filth. Also, Blaire Pascal called and he says you're doing it wromg: you solve all our problems apparently including environmental ones if you just sit quietly in your own room.

Derek Kite म्हणाले...

Why would someone voluntarily submit to airport security?

Jaq म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
Dust Bunny Queen म्हणाले...

Vacation? What is that? We are self employed, service based company with no full time employees. Only sub-contractors for the various jobs.

Spring, Summer and early Fall are our busy seasons. Hubby works the business end 7 days a week, on call for emergencies, and often 10 hours a day. If we can take 3 days off at a time during the summer, spring or fall, it is a miracle. In fact we are actually taking off three whole days this weekend to go camping at a National Park near us.

......although camping in a self contained trailer with heat, A/C, hot and cold running water, shower, fridge, freezer, stove and blue tooth speakers for our music is really hardly what you can call camping..... :-)

In the winter, we have little to no income so a "fun" vacation to an exotic location, (you couldn't PAY me to hang out with a bunch of tourists... anyway) is out of the question.

Other time off that we can spare is spent visiting our respective parents who have dementia, alzheimer's and other medical illnesses: while they still know who we are. Not fun, but necessary.

Besides, just kicking back at home is more relaxing and recharging than traveling to a destination vacation.

tim maguire म्हणाले...

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...As many have noted, PTO accumulates and can be held for early retirement, catastrophic illness or family emergencies.

I've heard of such things, but never witnessed it in the real world. I think very few people enjoy this benefit. Use it or lose it is the norm.

gilbar म्हणाले...

I just did the math;
If you figure that there are about a 100 Million working americans, this comes to about 7 days stockpiled for Each Worker.

So, IF If Worker gets about 10 days (weeks) Vacay a year, this doesn't mean each worker is ONLY TAKING 3 days a year....
It MEANS each works is taking Their FULL ALLOTMENT, EVERY YEAR; after building up a 7 day reserve .


Fun Fact!
Many (MANY!) jobs won't LET YOU take vacay your first 6 month or so; which means that EACH employee has 5 days unused Vacay before they are able to start taking Vacay.

7 days stockpile (768 Million Days!) is NOT a very large stockpile.
My co-worker Dave, takes about 4 days a year; then (each year) takes the month of August off
He's in Alaska right now; two weeks ago, he had 22 days unused. Now he's down to 5

buwaya म्हणाले...

Various people have commented on the cashing out of accumulated vacation.
I can add a ditto, I have seen this often. It is a popular form of savings, or "unemployment insurance".

There are often company policies putting limits on accumulation of unused time off.
This is not always easy to enforce.

stevew म्हणाले...

@MadisonMan: you and me both. So there's two of us, at least.

gilbar म्हणाले...

tim suggests we take a vote!
. I think very few people enjoy this benefit. Use it or lose it is the norm.

daskol म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
Temujin म्हणाले...

Too busy to read the article. Sorry. No time to comment. Gotta work. Then planning my next trip to Prague to get on a pub crawl.

Oh wait. That's no longer approved, is it?
OK, then. Maybe I'll just jet to Martha's Vineyard. I believe that is still an officially approved Lefty Vacation.

daskol म्हणाले...

I think my imagination has turned my vision UV such that I can actually see dried secreta and excreta and old spilled soup all over without a special flashlight. It's not a helpful gift

Coconuss Network म्हणाले...

We travelled in June. We were on vacation but the French not yet, so we got the full cultural impact. They do shut down France pretty much from July to September. Rare openings for restaurants. And that is how the French enjoy the work-life balance. At least a solid month, maybe 1-1/2 months off, and out of office reply. Do not disturb. They are with their families on vacation, wherever. There are some copying the American daily work lifestyle with 30 minute lunches and maybe a Saturday of work. But the majority favor their time off and don't hesitate to leave town unavailable: no mobile, no email. You'd have to check their illness rates, financial stability, happiness and health quotients to decide if it really works, but hey, they enjoy themselves and why not ?

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves म्हणाले...

Some Americans work too hard. Not to worry. Bernie has a plan to end that.

Dust Bunny Queen म्हणाले...

Gilbar at 8:47 is correct. Those PAID time off days are not lost. They are banked. Up to a certain amount above which you are not allowed to continue to bank the time.

The WaPOO is full of young idiots who have no idea how the rest of the world, outside of their bubble, actually works.

stevew म्हणाले...

FYI: my company has moved to an unlimited vacation model, employees no longer are granted nor accumulate vacation time. This has the nice benefit, for the company, of taking that liability off the books. We are told that all we need to do to take vacation is get the approval of our manager - no restrictions on the amount of time. I'm in the sales organization. Our business operates with a focus on closing business quarterly. Over the years customers have learned that the best way to be sure they are getting the best deal is to wait until the end of the quarter to sign. Asking for vacation time at the end of a quarter is certainly going to be refused, and may be career limiting.

I've been here long enough that I still have a bank of vacation time on the books. It's not that I don't take time off, there just hasn't been much discipline around recording that I've taken it.

CJinPA म्हणाले...

We should probably note that a big factor might be technology, and the ability to do more and more leisure activities at home.

We've never been able to experience the world remotely as we can now. And we're kind of lazy.

It's why young folk don't rush to get their driver's license anymore. It's why the NFL has a growing problem getting people into stadiums, with the home viewing experience having advanced so much.

Jaq म्हणाले...

"Those PAID time off days are not lost. They are banked. Up to a certain amount above which you are not allowed to continue to bank the time.”

In my experience, that “certain time” was the end of the year, unless you got manager’s approval to carry it over. Otherwise “poof."

tcrosse म्हणाले...

At the corporate behemoth where I was chained to the oars there was a generous amount of vacation which did not carry over from year to year. Projects and deadlines were scheduled in such a way that it was very difficult to take the entire amount. The easiest way was to take vacation piecemeal by creating long weekends. Finally, when I retired, I got to sell back six weeks worth.

J Severs म्हणाले...

Parents with young children take vacation days to cover illnesses.

Dust Bunny Queen म्हणाले...

@ Pphil 314
How many state parks could you visit on a weekend?

State Parks: Three within a 15 to 30 minute drive. Another 10 within a two hour drive. And over on the coast....at least another 10 5 to 6 hrs away. You really need a long weekend to enjoy the coastal State Parks.

4 National Parks also within a hour to 3 hour drive. Note: time not miles is the standard in the West to measure distance.

People come here to vacation :-) Fly fishing, golfing, hunting (deer, elk, wildfowl), bird watching, skiing, hiking, climbing mountains, hang gliding and just in general go camping.

reader म्हणाले...

Husband never took all of his annual vacation. With his company after you accrued a certain number of unused vacation days employees had the option to request payout of days equal to the number of days they were taking. So if he used 5 days of vacation, he’d get cash for another 5, and the company could clear 10 days off the books. We used this to offset the cost of the trip.

Husband worked every vacation we took (except for our honeymoon). He started with the company a month before our wedding but hadn’t earned any paid vacation time yet for our honeymoon. Before they hired him he asked to be allowed unpaid time off, instead they advanced him vacation days.

PuertoRicoSpaceport.com म्हणाले...

Drudge, I think, had a headline this morning that we would all be working 12 hours a week thanks to AI and robots!

Well, that is bullshit but assume it is true for argument.

What would people do with that leisure time? Most people have trouble handling time off.

Me? I've told my wife that when I die to bury me with my laptop and make sure the coffin has wi-fi and power connections. No point in letting something like death interfere with my work/fun.

John Henry

Display Name म्हणाले...

I can roll some accumulated time to next year, but lose all hours over the cap. Some recent years this has amounted to over 80 hours lost, which is quite annoying - I don't intend to work for free. When things slide to the end of the summer, my company cleverly fills up August with annual personnel and planning process stuff, which as an exec you can't miss - so your choice is to take "working vacations" where portions of every day are filled with phone calls, etc. Last year something came up with a client, and I told them I wouldn't do it unless they increased my cap by the amount I was over. HR fought this request tooth and nail. That tells you that there's a bean counter somewhere that is booking all this unused time to the company's bottom line.

rcocean म्हणाले...

Wealthy people and those who work in Education Industry may not realize this, but younger workers usually don't get much vacation, 2 weeks. Many of them take short vacations or they bank it, and take longer vacations in the future. In Yourope, everyone gets 4 weeks, and judging by the crowds they all take August off.

Dust Bunny Queen म्हणाले...

AAT In my experience, that “certain time” was the end of the year, unless you got manager’s approval

Yep. True dat.

It depends on the company, the size of the company, and if it is a private firm or controlled by the State or Government.

Most private companies cannot afford for you to bank your time and then take a big chunk of cash all at once.

Small or private companies can't set aside all of their working capital, just in case someone decides to quit and take 9 weeks of vacay. That is an UNfunded liability on the balance sheet. They also can afford the scheduling hassle if the employee decides to take 4 weeks at a time off. Small companies only have so many employees. Scheduling NIGHTMARE.

The government can't afford it either. Also UNfunded.... but they can just take your/our taxpayers money to fund the banked time off. After all the taxpayers have deeeeep pockets. Right? So the government employees get the big promises and we get to pay.

bleh म्हणाले...

This is just another installment of government knows best. Workers and employers simply can’t be trusted to bargain in the free market over terms like PTO. Workers who’d rather work hard and strive must be reined in. They also must be compelled to take parental leave whether they’re a primary caregiver or not. It would be unfair to their coworkers who might want to take that time for themselves but feel competitive pressures not to.

The Left wants to bureaucratize (is that a word?) every workplace in America and have employers enlisted to implement the government’s agenda. Who pays for it? Oh that’s not important.

They don’t want people to freely associate and enter into contracts. Because the people can’t be trusted to know what’s good for them.

Nonapod म्हणाले...

Drudge, I think, had a headline this morning that we would all be working 12 hours a week thanks to AI and robots!

Well, that is bullshit but assume it is true for argument.


The way things are going it seems highly like to not be BS to me. Sure, it might take a bit longer than some people think to reach that "12 hours a week" point, maybe even several decades. But I imagine that a vast majority of the menial sort of work will eventually be fully automated. It just makes too much sense.

For a basic example, take the transportion industry. Something like 9% of the US workforce is currently employed in transportation. What do you imagine will happen to that number once self driving vehicles become ubiquitous?

What people will do with all their free time is obviously a huge question once this comes to pass. We've always been geared towards thinking of work as being a big part of what defines who we are as people. For a large number of people the biggest challenge in the future may be searching for meaning in a life without traditional work.

CWJ म्हणाले...

IiB @ 8:07 offered the whatabouts of which I immediately thought. In fact, one of my employers abolished sick days in return for an increase in PTO. Not too many of us risked using the entire amount during prime vacation season lest we actually became sick later in the year. Maybe they controlled for those factors in some way, but given the sponsor of this research I doubt it.

Fen म्हणाले...

Must be nice. Some of us have leave on the books but can't risk taking the time off because the incompetents would burn the building to the ground while we were gone.

Every day is a crisis. And apparently we are the only ones who can fix it.

harrogate म्हणाले...

"Why not celebrate the status quo?"

After touring the blog for a while, one suspects that a better distillation of the Althouse philosophy would be difficult to find.

Charlie Currie म्हणाले...

There's no leisure in leisure travel.

Fen म्हणाले...

Oh, and before the State Lackeys chime in, both the wife and I are federal employees.

We've seen things you people wouldn't believe. :P

Calypso Facto म्हणाले...

"The study found that 55 percent of Americans did not use all of their paid vacation time" and, "The United States, on the other hand — on the very worst hand — mandates no paid vacation or paid holidays."

WaPo can't even decide if the problem too much or too little vacation ... but they are just SURE it's a problem for some reason, and probably are in favor of some kind of Big Government solution. Instead, I think it's a great example of markets at work: there is no mandate, yet employers provide time off until the marginal value to employees begins to drop and vacation time gets banked. System equilibrium.

And of course individuals are free to look for employment that matches up with their idea of "appropriate" vacation time from a variety of employer policy offerings. Want summers off? Be a teacher/professor. Want winters off? Work construction in the north. Want to bankroll time off for a 6-month payday on retirement? Get a Federal job. Just like a free-market grocery store, you get lots of choices. No problem here to solve with a one-size-fits-all response.

BJM म्हणाले...

Airports are a nightmare, airlines hostile, planes packed like sardines with people who have no clue how to act in public and camp grounds/resorts brimming with people partying like frat boys...one can't imagine why many of us take a pass.

Having visited most of the state parks when the parks were pristine and fishing, camping and boating on the weekends as a child I don't feel the need to revisit the parks and I can saddle a horse a when I feel the need for solitude and a natural space.

After thirty years working abroad and/or long distance commuting. I am into a cocoon phase and living in the country is totally different than in a city or town. One doesn't feel the need to go anywhere else. In spite of the work to maintain the lifestyle, it is a vacation in its own way.

Mark म्हणाले...

"What does America have against vacation?"

America has nothing against vacation. It is just likely and simply that those people not using all of their vacation time are folks who accrue five, six weeks a year or more.

effinayright म्हणाले...

"Why not celebrate the status quo? If we were traveling, WaPo should shame us for the impact on climate change, so why is the failure to travel treated like a problem?"
*************

So Althouse is a warmista, believing in spite of ample and even overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that humans are causing "climate change", somehow an utterly new phenomenon, and SHOULD be shamed for living normal lives.

I am not surprised. Althouse doesn't like to travel, especially by air, and so you should be shamed if you don't feel the same.

Meanwhile NOAA released data this week that shows that temps over the US haven't increased since 2005, while CO2 concentrations have continually risen..

https://www.weaselzippers.us/430584-climate-alarmists-foiled-no-u-s-warming-since-2005/

Since the air over the US comes from everywhere and is continually mixing with all the other air in the atmosphere, how could the rest of the Earth's air be sitting around being warmer than what's above us?

Meade म्हणाले...

traditionalguy said...

"[Mountain biking] solves everything. You can [ride] a different [trail network] each day. And you get to meet interesting and sociable [mountain bikers]. And then you shower and rejoin the others for a fine dinner [, a beer, campfire and stories]. Rinse and repeat.

Start with the [Kettle Moraine State Forest - Southern Unit and Blackhawk Ski Area]"

(Next day you can recover by shooting 18 holes at the beautiful Pleasant View Golf Course!)

jim म्हणाले...

Yes, I agree with both BJM and Mark, both phenomena are my experience.

I manage a group where most employees are in Canada or Netherlands. Working through a summer with these guys is an adventure: loong vacations, juggling who's going to be around and when. I am lucky all are people who feel responsible for the success of our business and never leave me high and dry (i.e. no Brits).

Mike (MJB Wolf) म्हणाले...

Time off for me means being able to spend time relaxing at home. I’m in the detestable Las Vegas for work. I would not come here for a vacation.

Yancey Ward म्हणाले...

This entire article sounds like complete bullshit to me. It makes it sound like people are losing their vacation days, and this cuts against pretty much everything I know about human beings- there is simply no way a person loses a vacation day- they are either carrying them over to the following year and using them then, or they are accumulating them year after year and then cashing them out at the end of the employment contract by either taking the last few months off, or getting a check for them all after the last day on the job.

purplepenquin म्हणाले...

Now people are being promised a "basic income" while not working, presumbably to play video games and take drugs. Is this really a satisfying life?

That depends - what kind of drugs & which video games are we talking about?


Jokes aside - seems that a lot of folks are living to work rather than working to live. More power to 'em, but methinks they gonna have some regrets while lying in their deathbed.

tim maguire म्हणाले...

Nonapod said...The way things are going it seems highly like to not be BS to me. Sure, it might take a bit longer than some people think to reach that "12 hours a week" point, maybe even several decades. But I imagine that a vast majority of the menial sort of work will eventually be fully automated. It just makes too much sense.

I don't think we'll get to 12-hour weeks. Rather, I think we'll get to 80% unemployment. Between robotics and AI, so many jobs will be eliminated that, eventually, 1 million programmers will be able to run the world.

Either we stick everyone else in some government make-work job (i.e., Cat's Cradle or the WPA), or we find some other model for running society.

Charlie Currie म्हणाले...

My favorite place to be has always been the beach. I've always lived within two miles of the beach in Southern California - currently, a block and a half. When I was a kid, we would spend a week at a different beach than the one we lived by. I think now that was just to prevent my dad from starting another project on the house or in the yard, which consumed most of his days off.

purplepenquin म्हणाले...

there is simply no way a person loses a vacation day

Where I work we're allowed to carry over X amount of vacation days from year-to-year. Anything more than that is gone if not used.

Fen म्हणाले...

- there is simply no way a person loses a vacation day- they are either carrying them over to the following year and using them then,

Maybe so. But for us there is a limit to the number of days you can carry over and save. Our limit is already maxed out, and end of fiscal year is approaching, so we have to stick around for the team and will lose probably 10 days each.

jimbino म्हणाले...

Amerikans don't travel much because of limited vacation time. What it comes down to is that Amerika is actually pretty boring. All Starbucks and Subways look pretty much the same. While Europe and the Latin lands are exciting, you need weeks if not months to travel and experience them. Feeling hobbled by speaking only English is another reason to stay home.

For that reason, I insisted on working only contract jobs, which paid well and gave me months of freedom between contracts. You can even get unimployment income if you use your time off to "look for a job" overseas. Off course, it's best for such freedom and for the planet if you maintain your status as a non-breeder.

daskol म्हणाले...

There are industries where for regulatory compliance reasons people have to take a mandatory two week break annually. Supposed to help prevent fraud in financial services, for example: hard to cook the books if you're not there.

effinayright म्हणाले...

"[Mountain biking] solves everything. You can [ride] a different [trail network] each day. And you get to meet interesting and sociable [mountain bikers]. And then you shower and rejoin the others for a fine dinner [, a beer, campfire and stories]. Rinse and repeat.
*********

But....but! Think of all the extra CO2 you would inhale from that exertion! The WaPo should shame you for not doing more to save the planet.

Snort.

Gospace म्हणाले...

Stated my 4 weeks vacation yesterday. Turned down in July when I wanted to go because we were going to be short one worker scheduled for an operation. As of yesterday we're down two. One quit, one injured. And the one getting the operation was rescheduled and gets it 2 weeks from now.


Visiting family in WV, TX, and CO. We'll stop and see some touristy things. Some American families, like mine, are scattered all over. My vacations are visiting time. Lots of people I know have all their close family, and even a lot of distant cousins, within a 30 miles radius. Honestly, many of them have never travelled out of state. They certainly couldn't imagine moving 100 miles for a job, much less cross country. They're perfectly happy where they're at, NTTAWWT.

There's a few people I know who never vacation, as we define vacation. They never have vacation time in the books. They work a week or two, sometimes a full month for someone, then stop to go hunting or fishing or just sitting around the house. When they run out of money they work again. That lifestyle works better in tropical areas, but people do it in the North.

rehajm म्हणाले...

There are industries where for regulatory compliance reasons people have to take a mandatory two week break annually

Yes- The Glodman people are on that program. Usually they take off when we need them the most...

gilbar म्हणाले...

stevew said...
FYI: my company has moved to an unlimited vacation model, employees no longer are granted nor accumulate vacation time.


This IS a disturbing trend! Good for the company, Hell for the employees
You can leave whenever they don't need you; of course, this means:
IF you take time off; you're ADMITTING that you're redundant
If you want to be needed; better act like it (WHY are you leaving? It's only 6pm!)

If you're a good programmer; and you have the choice of two jobs: one with Vacay, one without
Which is the better fit for YOU?

You know who WON'T be going that route? Government Service.

MadisonMan म्हणाले...

I will also note that the wife is principal point of contact for her Mom's health care. We've already had one getaway cancelled because of a medical emergency.

gilbar म्हणाले...

Meanwhile,
our poor lawmakers are SO CONCERNED about Climate Change; that they're waking up when we do
AOC says she's woken up at 3:30 AM because of her anxiety about climate change

"Even while I was on vacation, I woke up in the middle of the night, at 3:30 in the morning, just concerned about climate change," she said."

Michael K म्हणाले...

Off course, it's best for such freedom and for the planet if you maintain your status as a non-breeder.

Yes, we are cheering you on. The last thing we would want are more of you.

iowan2 म्हणाले...

My wife gets to cashout an hour of PTO for every hour taken. She always does that, and it amounts to more than 40 hours every year. She earns over 120 hours a year, and always starts the new year with 80 hours. When I retired I had over 4 weeks of vacation and 4 weeks sick leave. The sick leave is after I had donated my sick days to several of my peers that suffered medical problems.
I really like to work, I enjoy the process and the customers,and my work mates. Lucky me, sucks to be you.

Lewis Wetzel म्हणाले...

Does that "paid time off" include sick time?
I am retiring next year & leaving about 700 hours of sick time on the table.

NEO-FIDO म्हणाले...

I sold my vacation last year and walked away with thousands of dollars in compensation. Additionally, my schedule lets me have 4-10 days off in a row so what the hell do I need a vacation FOR?

hombre म्हणाले...

Because to the leftmedia cultural Marxists everything is treated as a problem. Like Trump, normal Americans can do nothing right. The elitist and victim classes, OTOH, can do no wrong.

hombre म्हणाले...

Two o’clock traffic jams in the city, however, suggest that some take time off during the work week, not vacation time.

Birkel म्हणाले...

More than six months of accrued time off here.
PRO TIP: Don't get sick; stay healthy.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

The company from which I retired had a useful benefit — you could donate some of your unused vacation to a colleague, for instance if that colleague had see up his or her available vacation but needed more time off de to a family medical emergency. I don’t know how typical this is, but I think it’s really great.

Then there are the millennials who are afraid to take vacation lest their boss realize he didn’t even know that said employee was gone.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

RE: Gilbar @ 8:47 AM

That's all very nice for you, and for others who work at companies big and/or profitable enough to be that generous, but only a minority of working Americans have such arrangements.

Michelle म्हणाले...

My company moved to "DTO" - Discretionary Time Off. It's technically unlimited, so there's no accrual of PTO/Paid Time Off which means they don't have to pay out unused vacation at the time of termination/resignation. When we had PTO, the accrual was capped at a certain number of hours and you couldn't stockpile indefinitely. I suspect most large American corporations have moved to either of these 2 models for non-union employees. So everyone above arguing over this is a little right and a little wrong (in my opinion and experience working for The Man).

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"You're A LIAR Cook (you didn't used to be).
"IF you TAKE your PTO, you're getting the same money; NOT MORE
"IF you DON'T Take your PTO, you get that time in a check when you terminate"


A mite excitable today, Gilbar?

At your job, and other jobs as well. But not all or even most jobs are so generous. For example, at my job, we can only carry over 10 leave days from one year to the next, and any we don't take we lose, and are not compensated for them. They do not accumulate to a sum greater than that.

Many other jobs don't have leave day benefits even as generous as that, which is a fraction of the benefits you described for yourself.

Kay म्हणाले...

Hard work isn’t always a virtue.

stlcdr म्हणाले...

"What does America have against vacation?"

This statement demonstrates their ignorance of America. Americans like to do things and achieve things: you do this by working.

Roughcoat म्हणाले...

jimbino once again takes top honors as the nastiest piece of work to comment on this blog.

gilbar म्हणाले...

Robert Cook said...
a minority of working Americans have such arrangements.
I've worked for seven different firms; Every One of them had those arrangements
OF the 700,000,000 days of accrued Vacation time outstanding; you want us to believe that
MOST of those people do not have those arrangements?

THE FIRST RULE OF LYING: In order to be believed, a Lie MUST BE PLAUSIBLE

Go back, and work on it some more
Note: You, Yourself, ADMIT that you could carry over (more than) 7 days without problems

Roughcoat म्हणाले...

Hard work isn’t always a virtue.

Are you talking about doing work that is hard, or ... working hard at what you do?

John henry म्हणाले...

Blogger Nonapod said...

But I imagine that a vast majority of the menial sort of work will eventually be fully automated. It just makes too much sense.

I would imagine that your X7 grandfather was saying that in about 1800. We get more and more automation every year and we also get more and more people working at better and better jobs for more and more money.

One example I was looking at recently was a secretarial pool. Some of the women here may have worked in one back in the day. I believe Ann has said she did at one point.

Here's a picture of the 6th level of Hell. http://www.motorgraphs.com/content/thumbnails/01541/154006-mainImage.jpg

Hundred of women sitting at desks and typing. Do typists even exist anymore? Does anyone NOT do their own typing of reports, memos, emails, letters, proposals and such? (With perhaps a few specialized exceptions.) This has all been automated with word processors and now word processing programs.

Gee, you would think there would be millions of women out of work, wouldn't you? But they aren't.

We have more automation than ever. Pretty much true for every year since 1800 yet we also have more jobs than ever. Good jobs too. Jobs that give people so much time off they don't even take it.

John Henry

gilbar म्हणाले...

And yes; i am 'a tad excitable today'

A person whose ideology was completely opposed to mine, but Still seemed like a reputable person has apparently become a lying liar

Marcus Bressler म्हणाले...

When I resigned from the USPS in 2000, I had a half-year's worth of sick leave banked. To me it was like disability insurance. I was blessed with good health and rarely took sick leave. I lost all of it, about $36,000 worth.

I had four hours of annual leave (vacation time) that came with my last check. I took time off as I needed it. Who said, on your death bed no one ever says they wished they had spent more time at the office.

THEOLDMAN

BJM म्हणाले...

"Off course, it's best for such freedom and for the planet if you maintain your status as a non-breeder."

Who will pay for all the free shit Progressives demand?

John henry म्हणाले...

Just got a press release yesterday about something that will put schleppers out of work.

Omron will be introducing an autonomous cart with a collaborative robot mounted on it. The cart will go all over the office or plant or store and the robot will pick up or leave stuff.

Both technologies have been around for a while. I even asked Rodney Brooks who invented both the Roomba and the first collaborative robot why he didn't put them together. (Some sort of contractual prohibition, he told me.) That was 6-7 years ago.

I am looking forward to seeing this next month.

The press release they sent was supposed to be embargoed but I found this online with pictures etc.

https://www.therobotreport.com/omron-debut-mobile-manipulator-integrated-grippers-pack-expo/

This will destroy schlepping jobs but will probably create 2 new jobs that we can't even imagine at the moment for every job it destroys.

John Henry

Dust Bunny Queen म्हणाले...

Wow! Everyone fighting or disagreeing about PTO and Sick Day policy. Chill out.

Not all companies are the same. Depends on the size of the company in money and in employees. Structure.(self employed, small business, medium, large, unionized or government) Depends on the industry too.

Also depends on how much the government intrudes into your business. Decides what is best for you. Thanks a lot /s

At a Bank or financial institution you MUST take your vacation time in two weeks in a row to prevent financial shenanigans from being hidden.

Other places don't care and you can take vacation in a lump or by the day.

Some allow you to accumulate days from year to year up to a certain amount of time. Others it is use it or lose it. Others allow you to bank the days and take the money when you quit or leave the company. Some others don't allow you to bank the PTO.

Sick time is accumulated up to a certain number of hours. And is also either on a bank it or use it or lose it basis. Or some other arrangement.

YMMV people!

Michael K म्हणाले...

John Henry, that thing looks a little like a pharmacy robot my hospital had in the 80s. It would take unidose drug orders to nursing stations and ran all night. We had a 24 hour a day Pharmacy.

Roughcoat म्हणाले...

Remember how, in the early 60s or thereabouts, the big issue was the looming threat of "too much leisure time" and concern as to how Americans were going to deal with it. I kid you not. Think back, those of you who were there, and recall how the media and the chattering classes latched onto this theme and flogged it relentlessly.

Along with the threat of the coming ice age.

Of course, there was also that old perennial, the looming threat of nuclear war. But that got boring. No, too much liesure time and the looming ice age were much worthier of attention ... and obsession.

narciso म्हणाले...

in other news,


http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=383047

Michael K म्हणाले...

I really like to work, I enjoy the process and the customers,and my work mates. Lucky me, sucks to be you.

I still miss surgery. I was forced to give it up at age 55 when my back required a long (14hr) fusion and 6 month convalescence. I did some sedentary things in Medicine for the next 20 years but surgery, even with the hours, was more like fun than work. My partner used to say "I hope they never find out I would do this for free."

I still dream about surgery sometimes. I usually managed to get one student each year interested in surgery but it is not the same.

Roughcoat म्हणाले...

Then there's that marvelous study that brought to light the fact that people during the Middle Ages had more time from work than we do, what with all the religious holidays and feast days and market days that filled the calendar year. Of course, when they did work, they worked very hard; and, in general, life was often nasty, brutal, and short. But they had many days off, and they did use that free time to make serious whoppee.

Francisco D म्हणाले...

For that reason, I insisted on working only contract jobs, which paid well and gave me months of freedom between contracts. You can even get unimployment income if you use your time off to "look for a job" overseas.

Sounds like a loser gaming the system. Why would anyone want to hire such a person?

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"A person whose ideology was completely opposed to mine, but Still seemed like a reputable person has apparently become a lying liar"

No, I'm simply pointing out that MOST Americans do NOT have the generous leave time (and probably other) benefits that you seem to take for granted and assume are common to all. You were just very very lucky. Most of your fellow Americans are not so lucky.

gilbar म्हणाले...

DBQ tells us all (meaning, ME) to chill out, saying...

YMMV people!


I totally agree! NEVER meant to imply that everyone on earth worked for a mutual insurance co.
But some people here seem to be implying (well, Explicitly Stating) that the Majority of People in the United States can't roll over their Vacay. Which is Probably true; since a majority of people in the country don't Get Vacay (since a majority of people in the country don't work).
But Of the people that get Vacay, Particularly those that have accrued Vacay; i think you'll find that Lots (MOST? (NEARLY ALL??)) of them can roll it over. I'll try hard to leave this post alone now
ttnf

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"As many have noted, PTO accumulates and can be held for early retirement, catastrophic illness or family emergencies."

Maybe where you worked, bub!

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"But Of the people that get Vacay, Particularly those that have accrued Vacay; i think you'll find that Lots (MOST? (NEARLY ALL??)) of them can roll it over."

Not to the extent you described at your job. As I say, at my job, we can carry over only a max of 10 days from year to year. Unused days beyond that are lost and are not given in the form of cash payment, (except when leaving the job, and even then it is problematic and not a sure thing). I'm sure I'm lucky that I work somewhere I can carry over 10 days.

Ambrose म्हणाले...

Those 768 million worked days add to our GDP.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"America has nothing against vacation. It is just likely and simply that those people not using all of their vacation time are folks who accrue five, six weeks a year or more."

A distinct minority of U.S. workers.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"a minority of working Americans have such arrangements.
I've worked for seven different firms; Every One of them had those arrangements"


I presume you work in one of those few work sectors where such benefits are the norm. Most Americans do not work in work sectors where such generous paid leave time and accrual is available.

The evidence for your argument is merely anecdotal, drawn from your anecdotes!

(I, for example, have never worked at any job where annual bonuses were given. I'm sure those who do work in such jobs consider this a norm of work in this country.)

Big Mike म्हणाले...

No, I'm simply pointing out that MOST Americans do NOT have the generous leave time (and probably other) benefits that you seem to take for granted and assume are common to all. You were just very very lucky. Most of your fellow Americans are not so lucky.

@Cookie, your leave benefits may not be as good as others of us, and I might add that the envy just oozed off the screen as I read your comments, but when you write that most of your fellow Americans are not so lucky, is that even true? Leaving out the self-employed and the unemployed, I suspect most Americans work for large firms that use a strong benefits plan to attract talent and retain it.

Calypso Facto म्हणाले...

"MOST Americans do NOT have the generous leave time"

The average time in current job is 5 years. The average number of paid vacation days for an employee with 5 years of service is 15 days. That employee also gets an average of 8 holidays per year and 6 sick days. (BLS data from "all civilian" employees data set, and all averages are medians.)

So I think it's safe to say that yes, MOST Americans DO have that kind of generous leave, although the carryover policies are still subject to conjecture.

Michael K म्हणाले...

I suspect most Americans work for large firms that use a strong benefits plan to attract talent and retain it.

Ands Cook doesn't. Anybody doubt that ?

Jim at म्हणाले...

Vacation? What is that? We are self employed, service based company with no full time employees. Only sub-contractors for the various jobs.

Yep. But on the other hand, I can take time off whenever I want or need.

Haven't worked for 'The Man' in more than 20 years. Wouldn't trade it for anything.

daskol म्हणाले...

All this quibbling about facts, some easily established and others in areas more difficult to measure, makes me wonder about the assumptions used to model that headline number. Many of the stats cited in there strike me as unlikely, and it would be really hard to measure how many vacation days we’re really leaving on the table. According to latest census, 35% of Americans work in firms < 100 people. I don’t think we know much about their benefits or utilization. 25% in firms of 100-2500, most of which are opaque and many of which probably keep books about as thoroughly as a small enterprise and are equally unlikely to be part of a survey/study, and 40% in firms of 2,500 or more, for which data are easy to come by. I’m thinking that 768M is bullshit and we have no idea of even the ballpark of the actual number. We know a good deal about benefits and benefit utilization at large firms. The trend has been towards large firms employing a larger part of the workforce but it’s still < half. Chimerical debate.

purplepenquin म्हणाले...
ही टिप्पणी लेखकाना हलविली आहे.
purplepenquin म्हणाले...

Latest figures I could find show that the Most Worked Jobs in America are:

Retail salespersons, 4.48 million workers earning $25,370
Cashiers 3.34 million workers earning $20,420
Food prep and serving staff, 3.02 million workers earning $18,880
General office clerk, 2.83 million working earning $29,990
Registered nurses, 2.66 million workers earning $68,910
Waiters and waitresses, 2.40 million workers earning $20,880
Customer service representatives, 2.39 million workers earning $33,370
Laborers, and freight and material movers, 2.28 million workers earning $26,690
Secretaries and admins (not legal or medical), 2.16 million workers earning $34,000
Janitors and cleaners (not maids), 2.10 million workers earning, $25,140


Most of the jobs listed tend to be part-time positions, which makes sense given that a lot of folks are stringing together a couple part-time jobs in order to make a living...


...and part-time work usually doesn't offer vacation time.

Amadeus 48 म्हणाले...

This issue gives me hope for America. This country is about working diligently and getting ahead.

I used to make a point of taking all my vacation, on the one hand, but my wife went to Europe twice one summer by herself, because I had to work. It didn’t kill me, it didn’t kill her, and it showed commitment to our clients.

iowan2 म्हणाले...

People that work for entities that have poor benefits are part of a large group of people that make choices. Some of my peers choose to work part-time, with limited benefits. It's their choice, they have refused fulltime positions because they don't want to be tied to the job. I don't feel bad for people that make choices then whine when they dont get some perks.
I guy I worked with never had more than 2 or 3 days of PTO accumulated. Used it as he got it. When the inlaws sprung a Disney Trip on them for the next month, he didn't have enough time to take a whole week off.
People make choices. If your employer doesnt have a good benefit package, find one that does. It's a workers market today. Thank Your President Trump?

Calypso Facto म्हणाले...

"Most of the jobs listed tend to be part-time positions, which makes sense given that a lot of folks are stringing together a couple part-time jobs in order to make a living..."

Debatable. Of the 25.5 million part-time workers in the US, only 3.5 million are part-time for economic reasons (meaning they can't find full-time work) (2018 BLS). The vast majority elect to be part-time so that they can spend time on other pursuits like school or family or ... time off. Part-time work, in essence, comes with its own "vacation time" baked in.

BLS also says 4.9% of the workforce works 2 jobs (the lowest percentage in more than 20 years, BTW) and Census statistics suggest only about 17% of this set, or less than 1% of the total workforce, works 2 part-time jobs. If the original ratio about WHY people work part-time holds true, this means that only about one-tenth of one percent are "stringing together a couple part-time jobs to make a living".

bagoh20 म्हणाले...

My company has always offered 2 weeks paid vacation the first year through year 10, then 3 weeks, then at 15 yrs you get 4 weeks. Nobody ever takes the 4 weeks, a very few take 2 weeks, but most just work it, and take the double pay, with maybe a week or two every few years. People would just rather have the money and 2 days every week. Plus another 7 holidays is plenty time off. People have different values and mentalities. Some of us really like to work more than most anything else we can find to do, and some are just driven. When you are that kind of person, it's really hard to spend much time being unproductive. Other people really hate work, and it often doesn't matter what the work is. They just don't want it, and consider it a necessary evil to avoid as much as they can afford. We just don't think the same, and have different sources of bliss.

Fen म्हणाले...

YMMV people!

I do have to confess that some of our leave is lost to our own lack of planning or irresponsibility.

You can only keep so many balls in the air at once at work, and often its the personal ones that get dropped.

Or you plan on taking next week off but MUST get X done before then. And you wind up sick Mon and Tues and wind up cancelling next week's vacation just to catch up.

PuertoRicoSpaceport.com म्हणाले...

Michael, the carts have been around for 40 years or so. The ones from the 80's needed wires in the floor or other external guidance. They were kind of dumb. They keep getting better and cheaper every year.

Ditto the robot. 6-Axis robots have been around for 40 years or so. In the 80's that robot might have cost $100-150m. It would have needed to be in a cage, it would have needed power. You could not have mounted it on a cart for mobility. It would also have been pretty dumb, could only pick up something if it knew the precise, down to thousandths of an inch, location of what it was to pick up. Ditto also placing it.

The cart you saw needed someone to place the meds in the pharmacy and remove them at the nurse station.

This cart, I believe, operates off an internal map. Once that is loaded, just tell it to go to the pharmacy, find a bottle of whatever on a shelf. A camera will locate the bottle by barcode, tell the robot how to pick it up. Schlep it to the patient and place it on the night table.

You might even be able to have the robot put the tablet in the patient's mouth.

Then the cart goes to the nearest inductive charging pad and parks itself, soaking up juice, until the next task.

Probably less than $100m ready to run.

That's the kind of technology that is available off the shelf today.

John Henry

Gospace म्हणाले...

When worked part time retail at a big box, part timers got paid vacation, half as any houses as full timers. And matching 401k plans. And sick time.

Picking the right employer is important. But also - the employer has to choose you. If all you're worth is minimum wage with no benefits, that's what you're going to end up with.

Michael K म्हणाले...

The ones from the 80's needed wires in the floor or other external guidance. They were kind of dumb.

Maybe ceiling but no visible wires and it hummed along the hospital corridors at night delivering orders to nursing stations.

That was back before the hospital was nonprofit and all innovation stopped.

Since I retired, it has been sold to an order of nuns who hired a Pepsico executive to run it and quality has collapsed.

RobinGoodfellow म्हणाले...


Blogger tim maguire said...
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...As many have noted, PTO accumulates and can be held for early retirement, catastrophic illness or family emergencies.

I've heard of such things, but never witnessed it in the real world. I think very few people enjoy this benefit. Use it or lose it is the norm.


It is typical for government jobs; not so much in the private sector.

Jeff म्हणाले...

I retired from the Federal Reserve Board two and half years ago. Depending on seniority, you got a certain number of vacation hours per year. You could sell back 40 hours of that per year, i.e., if you took one week less vacation then you were entitled to, you could paid for that extra week. So many people, including me, did that. You could also carry forward up to 360 hours into the next year. So if you had, say 416 hours accumulated at the end of the year, you'd take two days off, sell back 40 hours, and carry 360 hours forward. If you didn't take the two days off, you just lost those 16 hours.

Also, when you retired you could either sell back your unused vacation time or go on terminal leave, or do a combination of both. When I retired I had about 400 hours of vacation earned that I hadn't taken yet. So my official retirement date was actually three days after I stopped going in to the office (because your first day of retirement had to be the first of a month) and I sold the other 47 days back.

CWJ म्हणाले...

purplepenquin,

I thought the single largest occupation in America was "driver." That it didn't crack your stats I find curious.

CWJ म्हणाले...

As far as the back and forth with Cook is concerned, he seems to have a commitment to the idea that the typical American worker is of the "I dreamed I saw Joe Hill" variety even if his own experience doesn't track with that. I give him props for his consistency, but at some point he might consider that America's workers have moved on beyond the salad days of the Woblies.

Fen म्हणाले...

A person whose ideology was completely opposed to mine, but Still seemed like a reputable person has apparently become a lying liar

Yah, I sometimes don't understand why people here suffer the likes of Cook, Freder, etc.

I DO get the whole "let's not let the politics be the personal 24/7 please" vibe, but these are the people you have over for dinner for years and then... one night, the Gestapo knocks and knows EXACTLY where to find the secret panel that leads to the hidden room full of Jews you are protecting.

The Marxist Left are monsters, I don't think we should be socializing or normalizing them, any more than we would tolerate Nazis on these boards. If they get power and have their way, your family will be reported for indoctrination.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"@Cookie, your leave benefits may not be as good as others of us, and I might add that the envy just oozed off the screen as I read your comments, but when you write that most of your fellow Americans are not so lucky, is that even true? Leaving out the self-employed and the unemployed, I suspect most Americans work for large firms that use a strong benefits plan to attract talent and retain it."

On the contrary, I have always considered my benefits very generous, with 20 paid days off each year...from the first year of employment. (We used to have an additional 7 "personal days" we could take ad hoc, but they went away some years ago.) Most working Americans don't enjoy that many paid leave days annually. I have never envied anyone else's vacation benefits, given my awareness of how few Americans have so many paid days off each year. I don't make the mistake of assuming most or even a majority of Americans have ample leave days that they can accumulate and exchange for cash payouts, as some here who were fortunate enough to enjoy such benefits have done. I simply reject the claim that "most Americans" work for "big firms" and are swimming in pools of endlessly accumulating leave days.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

Most working Americans don't enjoy that many paid leave days annually.

This is what I object to — the bland assertion of things you assume, but don’t actually know to be true. Where is your research?

I have never envied anyone else's vacation benefits, given my awareness of how few Americans have so many paid days off each year.

The first sentence is a self-evident lie. And you don’t have an awareness, you have an assumption.

Unknown म्हणाले...

I work in Thailand, Mexico, Malaysia - lots of lazy places

They would ask

Why do Americans choose to work so hard?

Japan does 9-9-6, 9 am to 9 pm 6 days a week

and Jack Ma is pushing that for China - but big difference

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/15/business/jack-ma-996-china/index.html

stlcdr म्हणाले...

Blogger Robert Cook said...
"America has nothing against vacation. It is just likely and simply that those people not using all of their vacation time are folks who accrue five, six weeks a year or more."

A distinct minority of U.S. workers.

8/29/19, 1:02 PM

Based on what? Your experience? As DBQ said, YMMV.

Vacation accrual is common for older workforce’s - those with 20-30 years or more working time. Less so for a younger generation. In addition, tenure can net you 30 days or so of annual vacation. In those positions, taking vacation can be a detriment to your job: no one is going to do the stuff you aren’t doing.

Regardless, how does any of this relate to the original point? Assuming the numbers are correct, the simplest explanation is that Americans like to work.