O.K. our vacation time officially sucks and I wish I had never read how much time you people are given because it's making me depressed. With only having two weeks off it's hard not to feel obligated to go see family because it's the only time we can. Having kids complicates things too because we only see family once a year and I think it's important for kids to grow up surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Plus we don't have the money to go anywhere. Growing up I was fortunate to have been to New York (twice), Florida, Detroit Michigan, Minnesota and Washington but that's about the extent of my travels. Maybe that will change one day. I have a lot of family in Poland, France and other parts but doubt I'll ever meet them which is sad because i never grew up knowing my Polish heritage, seeing pictures or being taught the language even though my dad lived in Poland until he was 18! How weird is that? I'm half Polish and I know five words.

Are any of them swear words?

Are any of them swear words?

Well one is sort-of like calling someone a dipshit according to my father. Too bad he called my mother it all the time. Now he's a true dipshit....motherfucker...asshole...bastard.....I could go on.

I get the picture...

[quote=sweetnsexy,Mar 13 2006, 10:14 PM]
Why not Europe??
If they had a Tour to your house sweety,I would make an exception and be there.

It amazes me that in supposedly the country with the highest standard of living in the world (the USA), Americans put up with such piddly ass vacation benefits.

Most American workers get no more than 2 weeks paid vacation -- many workers get none. Certainly most of the 5% of the workforce that are undocumented Mexican workers get none. On the other hand, it is not uncommon for high income
Americans to take unpaid leave to travel, if they do not get paid leave.

Americans have often settled for more toys to play with on their non-vacations rather than more time to spend with family and friends. In the US there is a lot of bullshit about family values -- but those values do not include getting time off work for maternity leave, family emergencies or recreation.

The situation is unlikely to improve any time soon, because of global economic pressures and the decline of organized labor in the US.

In egalitarian societies like Australia and Scandinavia with their strong unions and love of outdoor recreation, time off work is strongly valued.

I'll get off my soap box here. BTW, I've traveled quite a lot - Australia, Southeast Asia, all over Europe numerous times including Russia. I particularly like the American West though. I'm a native of Montana and like the wide open spaces. But Saturday I'm off for 10 days in Hawaii.

Dude that has less chance of happening than evade discovering the cure for cancer!



I hear what u are saying. Aussies get angry that we get 4 weeks paid leave per year.... we want more! I couldnt believe that most yanks only get 2 weeks

Hope u enjoed Australia.... where'd ya go?

I agree with a lot of that. I live in Canada and it is slightly better depending on what province you're from. But I just fouund out recently that mothers only get 6 weeks maternity leave in the US?!?! SIX WEEKS!?! In Canada you get one year paid off and they are thinking of making it 2.

6 weeks?!?! That´s terrible!! Here you will have 9 months maternity leave and after that you can have few months more if you want and after that you can be home with little money to that year when you younges kid turns three I was home "only" 1,5 year and then went to school..

They work us to death in america. I think I am gonna move.

Like in 10 years when the boys are a lot older I think I will move to another country. Why live life if you are worked to death and never have time to afford to or enjoy anything. Being in the medical profession I can find work anywhere around the world.

I wanted to retire to a nice area of Mexico but now I am considering Austrailia.

Maternity leave here depends on your company but its usually 1 year paid at full rate or 2 years paid at half rate

Here it is 6 weeks and lowerclass jobs not even paid just wont loose your hob if you take off 6 weeks. Some companies have 12 weeks but not sure if paid.

I know da may boo-shay (phonetic)

My friend's dog also was trained in polish. i could tell you to sit, lay down, and beg.

Trip to Australia: we started out in Sydney then traveled by train all the way to Cairns, shifting from standard gauge to narrow gauge in Brisbane.
Got a rental car in Cairns, traveling into the Atherton Tablelands and then up to Port Douglas and Daintree.Spent some time on Fraser Island and went diving in the Great Barrier Reef. Had a fantastic time and saw all kinds of wildlife and sea creatures. Certainly I'd like to go back and visit other regions. I was thoroughly impressed with the country and its friendly people. Especially the food was fantastic, much more variety, fresh vegetables and seafood and ethnic cuisines - something that I wasn't really expecting. , mate.

Who cares if no-one knows what we're taking about....it's my normal state of affairs!!

I saw most of the ceremony - and agree about Delta - she is very pretty. And I'm impressed that she could sing with all that smoke billowing around....and those skaters with the fireworks on their backs....way cool, but that has got to be scary!!!!

sucks for you guys! Im going to be a teacher, so every summer off! yeah teachers get shitty pay, but if you only worked 3/4 of the year youd be ok with it!

I cant wait to go on vacations!! I think im going to Italy first...

For all of you non-Americans, don't rest on your laurels too long.

With globalization, there is tremendous natural and unnatural pressures to even the playing field in terms of labor markets, pay and benefits. That means, over the long run, less vacation time, etc. for countries that have historically had a lot of it.

Unnatural pressures would be some of the labor laws that have been enacted as the EU emerged. In order to joing the EU, countries have had to change certain labor laws to allow uniformity between countries.

Natural pressures, in my view, include what is going on in France right now. In order to encourage businesses to higher more youths and minorities, the government there is pushing legislation that will allow employers to lay off/terminate an employ for any reason in their first year or two. Employers say this will encourage them to higher more young workers and reduce the high unemployment levels of youths and immigrants. However, for those in France used to protected jobs, this is a shock to the system. For this reason, right now in France, there are demonstrations, bordering on riots against this. In the United States, this type of employer-employee relationship is a big yawn.

So, just don't get too comfortable.....

I think that it´s terrible what they are doing in France right now....Se had a strike here because our professional drivers (trucks, bus etc.) think that firms are using too much people that has only a appointed time deal...the strike lasted about a week and then they made a good deal I hope that next strike that we have is about nurses pay, we don´t get enough money for our work (even busdriver is earning more money than a nurse!)

I think that our goverment don´t have guts to cut our vacation the whole country would be just a one big strike

I understand what you are saying, Summoner. Pure capitalism can be de-humanizing and lead to worsening working conditions.

However, with globalization what you have is the ability of companies -- particularly, transnational companies -- to move operations and manufacturing to areas with lower costs. This has happened a lot in the United States with manufacturing. Manufacturing jobs have moved to Mexico, China, and a zillion other places. A lot of high-tech jobs (software engineering, call centers) have moved to places like India.

Nursing, and other similar jobs, is relatively protected from something like this because you can't do it remotely. It's in person. But then, people import nurses from third-world countries, where the people would jump at the chance to earn pay that we don't think is very good.

I may be wrong, but when Britain had its most protections for employees, it also had the highest unemployment rate.

Stop scaring me OB

Don't be scared, Diane. The United States functions pretty mean and lean -- it's countries with high benefits that have to worry about how to sustain them. Sweden used to provide all kinds of incredible benefits for employees - health, vacation, etc. But the country was going bankrupt trying to do this and compete with other countries at the same time. It ended the worker's paradise model. Germany, another country that has tremendous worker benefits has a huge unemployment rate right now. It can't compete with a lot of other countries when it has to pay its workers so much in terms of combined pay and benefits.

The important rule to live by is "don't fool yourself" - am I good at my job? Am I increasing my skills? Do I have positive visibility within my company?

Also, always be thinking about pursuing a job that a) you really like, and you can distinguish yourself in with unique capabilities. If you can achieve , you can earn money that is atypical and above the typical levels of pay. The best ways of achieving are:

1. Be innovative. Come up with cool new ideas for how to do things and how to make better products or provide better services.

2. Be a crucial part of cash flow. Do things that make your company/organization more revenue (or save them revenue). People will notice and pay you accordingly.

2. Be irreplaceable. Someone who, if they left, would tear the heart out of their company.

I'm scared cause I wanna move to Aussie land and dont want to move from here to be worked to death there:P

A fun job I think would to be a PI I would be good at that:D

I can't do any of that! I'm just gonna quit, move to the woods and keep a journal of my thoughts.



Australia? Stalking bondi I presume?

Shhhhhhhhhh its a secret;)



It is that or Mexico. I used to say canada but I need the tropics.

The tropics and it's further away from Gnappy.

Can NO ONE keep a secret anymore. Good Grief.

OOPS, you didn't say that was a secret.

Where did this thread go from talking about holidays (nice thread) to a bloody economic thesis??

BTW, I'm on holiday again next month

That sucks, I gotta save my 2 weeks. 1 week between Christmas and New Year's to go visit family and the other for anything fun that might come up. I need more vaca time.

Oh yea, Sweet, have a nice holiday, going anywhere?

I guess Vegas didnt sound fun enough.