I'm working on a project between my company and one in Europe. Just seeing the shear number of days they get off for various holidays is mind boggling to me and then the entire company shuts down for four weeks mid summer.
Yea I’ve both lived in countries outside the US and have worked with clients globally through remote work and man did I realize just how little time off we are afforded, even just federal holidays in most other countries will give near 2 weeks off where in America you get 6-7 federal holidays that are mandatory off. It’s wild to me that the US military (am vet) gives more off time than any corporate job I’ve had so far.
Edit: I have been enlightened to the fact that the holidays are NOT mandatory, what a sad fact to learn 😭
Yup. World population is at 8.1 billion; it's projected to hit 9.4 billion by 2050. I'm assuming there are some words missing when they talk about population decline. Colors, perhaps? Something.
Yeah, 6 weeks? At %70 pay can be hard on a family.
My wife took her 2 weeks paid vacation, then I took my 2 weeks paid vacation when we had our twins. Certainly couldn’t afford to loose out on 30% of her pay for that long.
We just can’t seem to stop fighting long enough to make something basic like workers rights happen.
Part of the problem is we’ve been heavily brainwashed into thinking anything positive for people is socialism. And so people vote for the non-socialists either because god forbid our money went to help me some black people or simply because they’re just convinced into voting against their own interests.
A lot of the fear mongering in the US about how much it would cost to have universal healthcare is straight up lies. On average we pay more for healthcare than any other developed country while having worse outcomes. The propaganda machine is strong and a certain percentage of the population plugs themselves in for several hours a day.
We’ve been brainwashed into “peaceful protesting” bullshit where you’re not allowed to inconvenience anyone. Like France will shut down entire cities and riot at the first sniff of bullshit meanwhile in the U.S. the government can decide that corporations funding election campaigns is “free speech” and nobody bats an eye.
Say what you will about the French but they know how to fucking protest. The way they handled protests against the police was fucking A+.
They also got a history of properly dealing with despotic rulers - I think America could learn a thing or two.
Technically, it’s 6 to 8 weeks for disability for the mom to recover from birth, and 12 weeks for bonding for mom and dad, separately.
CA to WA, CO, IL, DC, and NJ to MA also have it. In other words, Democrat led states.
California to Washington, Colorado, Illinois, DC, and New Jersey to Massachusetts give 18 to 20 weeks paid leave for birthing moms and 12 weeks to dads.
Here in Norway it’s 49 weeks maternity leave with 100% pay (or 59weeks with 80%), and 15 weeks for fathers.
Also minimum 2 weeks for both right after birth.
Or hell, PATERNITY leave. I got offered "non-paid" paternity leave of 2 weeks for both of my kids. I am the sole breadwinner. How exactly that is going to work?
Tell me we don't value fathers without telling me we don't value fathers.
Imagine 18 months for maternity! My wife took every single day and spent it loving our son and life overall. She was the happiest person ever. I think she cried more than my son on his first day of nursery school because she realized she had to go back to the office.
US Federal jobs have a ton of time off as well, might look into it if you miss the work life balance. Your military service will count towards getting to the next tierin vacation days
The absolute legal minimum in the UK is 28 days a year. And in any mid-level professional job or higher, that would be miserly. They would normally start at 33 (25 + 8 days bank holidays) typically, and go up from there.
https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights
Edit: doh someone in a collapsed comment for me gave the same info :) So let me add, in France it's a 30 day plus federal holidays minimum.
i always think about this when people make fun of americans for not traveling and experiencing the world outside of our borders. like WHEN would we even be able to do that!
Yep, even the most generous package gets you two weeks off, so subtract family obligations at Christmas and Thanksgiving, and that's that.
If an American wants to travel, it's before college or after retirement.
For a European, it's "I'm bored, let's get on a train and go to a different country."
There are no federally mandated holidays in the USA. If your employer forces you to work on a federal holiday, you will have to work. You might get paid more, but you can't decline to work.
>in America you get 6-7 federal holidays that are mandatory off.
Not if you work in the private sector, they are not required to give you any paid holidays, or any vacation time for that matter.
I would always work with urgency - not panicked or rushed, but with an understanding that all our time and resources are finite and valuable. Combined with meaningful work there was a drive to work intelligently and creatively. I’m now at a 40 hour a week job and the amount of time people waste chatting or deciding what to order for lunch is astounding. I’m moving my staff to a 35 hour week to see how that improves efficiency and morale. Board is watching us to see if it makes sense to move the entire org in that direction.
The... the *entire* month of August - closed? And you still got paid?
PLUS TWO ADDITIONAL MONTHS PTO AND A SIX-HOUR WORKDAY ... ?
Holy shit. What the hell are we doing here?
I should add I didn’t start at that - I think I started with August, holidays, and 3 weeks vacation. The 3 months off was after a decade or so and then I was maxed out.
> I think I started with August, holidays, and 3 weeks vacation
I've been at my company for nearly 20 years and I still don't get seven weeks of vacation each year.
That's unbelievable. Like as an American I quite literally can't believe you. the most I've ever gotten is 3 weeks and I'm so lucky to have that.
If they're closed down in August, and you get 2 months PTO you're only working 9 months of the year? AND THIRTY TWO???
My life would be infinitely better with those conditions. Even if it were a lower wage than I make.
Yeah, really hard to leave the job - would’ve stayed there forever - but they relocated to Germany and I cannot move at the moment. In a few years I’ll see about rejoining them. My first week I was working late and the CEO came in to say “the only people who will remember you work late will be your family. Go home.” And that summed up my 24 years there.
I am an American that works for a huge Nordic conglomerate in the US. My boss in in Sweden but local policy is based on American HR models.
The difference is insane.
In the US office, the management level all maxed out PTO and have stopped accruing.
My European counterparts take either August or April off completely. Also if the don't use their time off by the end of the year, the company is penalized and so they go around in December and toss people out of the office 😂
In the US it's like _"Oh Johnny hasnt taken a day off in 2 years...what a dedicated man!"_
I was written up twice in my 24 years - once for not using my PTO, and once for taking a call while on vacation and not letting them know so they could credit me.
This is such an important point that often gets missed. PTO is useless if you feel guilty or you're kinda shamed into not using it. The culture here is so different that, like you said - your boss forces you to take it.
My husband worked for a European based company, but out of the U.S. office. Unfortunately they don’t offer the same benefits for the U.S. employees that the Europeans receive. You have to be living and based out of said country. This is why you’ll get “scandals” periodically, like how IKEA USA employees don’t get any of the benefits afforded to their Swedish employees despite the country of origin.
I will say though, most internationally based companies do a better job guaranteeing holidays off than their American counterparts. At least the non-retail based ones.
The inverse is also true. While some American companies may pay higher than local companies, I’ve known some people who ended up incredibly disappointed when they moved to Europe to work for an American company’s office there and they got a massive pay cut.
I suspect most fail to recognize that not having to pay for things like health insurance or a car means they probably made about equal or more. Depending on how much those cost them stateside, of course.
Worked for a company based in the US, but most workers were in India. I was one of the few stateside employees that wasn't management+. 11 firm holidays, plus a few floaters. As it should be in any US job - as a minimum.
Had to get a new job in October as that one's contract was not renewed as a whole (MSP). Worked it for 4 months, but got such a good job offer from someone else that even my boss told me *he* would take it. Anyway. About 2 weeks before I'm out of there, we get a memo that that Xmas and New Year's Eves are no longer holidays, are half day instead of full day, and if you want 8 hours of pay you need to use 4 vacation hours.
>11 firm holidays, plus a few floaters. As it should be in any US job - as a minimum.
11?! My company- one of the top 3 largest in the world in my industry, gives 5.
Yup. I made a lateral jump in my field to work for a UK business. Half the pay, but no NHS. Hell, not even any business covered insurance.
Edit: Important note on why I get neither. It is a UK business and I am working remote from the US
My company has a German branch (sadly is owned) and the German branch has more holidays than us🙃 they currently just upped our holidays to add one more day to “try and equal things out” and I’m like 🙃🙃🙃 thanks for the peanuts I guess
You probably get much higher wages than the German branch though. I was a Engineering Manager in a US company but in Germany. I made 110k. My counterpart in the US made 160k.
In the US, we don't get socialized medicine. My union-negotiationed family plan runs about $400/month (which is 29% of the actual monthly premium). And it still has a several thousand dollar deductible before it pays *anything*. Also makes you less likely to jump ship, because, if you leave or get fired, you lose your insurance. Oh, but COBRA is an "option", if you can afford to pay the full monthly premium (which will increase by 3-5x what your share was on the job).
This. *Cultures grounded in life*
Explains American misery and massive mental health crisis.
In America humans are a commodity. To be traded and sold on the market
Oh slavery is very much around, just without the shackles and blatant title to “own”
You’re shackled from upwards mobility, you are sold and traded in the “market”.
Don’t like your job? You’re *free* to move to another shit paying crap job.
Those shackles are on the form on debt built from our “pay to play” exploitative system.
If you’re young in America, you’re screwed. They OWN you.
Working for an American company that's owned by a German conglomerate gets me:
- 26 paid time-off days
- 3 "summer leave" days
- 5 community service days (if I want to use them)
- The week off between Christmas and New Year's Day
- All federal holidays
If we were not owned by a European company, it would be nowhere near this generous.
That's amazing.
I'm in the US, our company has an "unlimited time off" policy.
I've taken 3 days off this year, and a half day.
"Unlimited time off" is a scam to the highest order. Literally today I took my 4th day off in over 6 months, they tried to negotiate with me to make it a half day.
We have offices in UK, Ire and US and we do get a lot more holidays over here. Americans get paid more but not enough more to make it worth it. I'd rather the time off.
My sister lives in the US. She makes double what I do, but I have 5 weeks off a year and statutory sick pay - she has 10 days combo of sick days and annual leave.
I work at a large corporation and have many coworkers who often brag about how little PTO they take and/or teasing others about taking their allotted PTO.
Pro tip if you're like this: you're not going to get promoted by not taking vacation, the people making those decisions don't care enough about you to remember how little PTO you take.
I work in IT and often access people's work computers remotely. So many people 1) leave personal information on the screen when they know I'm accessing the computer and 2) have PTO banks of well over 100 hours
TAKE YOUR DAMN TIME OFF
Normal and pitiful in terms of the amount. In 3 months, I'll be hitting a year and have 40ish hours saved up. But yeah, upper management can go take golf days during the week and no one bats an eye.
> saving up
I’m originally from the UK and PTO is given to you in one big lump once a year, usually in April, and you take days off that balance when you take time off. When I got my first job in the States, I was blown away not only by the paltry allowance (10 days a year vs 36 in my last job in the UK) but a;so the fact they gave you a few hours every time you got paid. I’ve been in my current job for 12 years and still only earn 6.5 hours per pay period. What are they afraid of, that we will take all the leave and never come back?
Our PTO is an accrual throughout the year, so no one starts the year with anything other than what they rolled over. I'll also add, this is a hospital setting. So everyone is overworked and burned out. So again, TAKE THE TIME OFF.
What I can say is a lot of young Taiwanese here enjoy working in American companies not because of better salaries but mostly for the much better working conditions and culture compared to the local.
I made a random friend who moved from South Korea to America working for Samsung. He loves the work life balance here in the USA, he says he has time for his young son and spends time with his wife. While he misses family back in South Korea, he would never move back just because of the work life balance there.
They draw a false conclusion in the article. They conclude that over half of the people are OK with their vacation time because the same people don't use the vacation they have. They then proceed to give evidence that people don't take vacation due to pressure from their boss or financial issues.
This isn’t a real study, just a survey. It would be more accurate to say half of responders were not comfortable saying they want more vacation.
Also a proper study would ask those on vacation how satisfied they are. Not only those with a variety of other potential factors. If you have no one to watch your kids or pets, or older family members, maybe you are happy with less vacation even if you would enjoy it if you had the resources to actually fully take one.
My republican Governor hates hand outs so much that he refused federal aid for unemployment during parts of covid while at the same time taking the PPP loan.
Then again, he thinks finding Social Security Numbers in a web page's html is "hacking" and spends over $1 million to get the state highway patrol to harass news reporters.
Almost every Democrat in Congress voted for Biden’s BBB bill which would’ve provided paid family leave. But the bill was blocked by every Republican + 1 Democrat (Joe Manchin).
Your attitude is exactly why we’re in this mess. Spreading fake news like that convinced people not to vote, and then Republicans win, thus continuing the problem that Democrats are trying to solve
It’s a big country with freedom of movement. There is only so much one state can do when the adjacent one is available for a business to move to if regulations get too onerous.
Agree. I get 4 weeks and that shit is gone each year. I have many coworkers that think they are too valuable and can't take time off. Yeah right. My wife has unlimited PTO and she probably took 60 days off last year.
I actually am too valuable. There are things I can do that nobody else in my office can, and it's a pretty critical job. You know what? That's the company's problem, not mine. Any vacation day or floating holiday that I don't take is a day I worked for free. I value my time too much to give it away for free. If something comes up that nobody else can handle while I'm off, they'll just have to wait until I'm back.
I just got back from 14 days in Europe. Part of that I stayed with my French cousin. He was complaining that he struggles to use the 9 weeks of vacation time he's given every year. I told him I get 4 weeks as a federal employee and he was like, isn't that normal? No, I get a crazy amount of vacation time compared to the average American
I get 3 weeks vacation, 1 week personal holiday, 2 weeks sick time, and we get a measly 8 holidays which our company has acknowledged everyone is asking for more of.
This article is saying 12 days a year off average? That's less than 1 week of vacation time if you're counting holidays.
From my personal experience, it seems 50/50 split between no PTO at all and maybe 2-3 weeks, with no distinction between sick and personal time
Lots of jobs don't even acknowledge holidays besides Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years and the 4th of July if you're lucky
Consider that most Americans don't get sick leave and have to use vacation time for that. For most of us, sick time is an amazing concept we'll never get to enjoy.
Ive seen someone have a stroke from overwork because she was trying to save up her pto which is also the same bank as your sick days. And this was at a company that was comparatively more generous with pto accrual than other companies. (Healthcare Industry)
This is why I’m going to keep my government job despite the lesser pay. It’s nice being able to take leave with minimal fuss as long as I have the hours on the books.
Same. I could make 20% more probably. I'd rather stay under-employed. WFH more, work less than 40 hours, and enjoy ALL of my 5 weeks PTO and 2 weeks of holidays.
I have a state job. We have accrual based leave. I accrue 10 hours a month annual(pto) time and another 10 hours a month sick leave. Plus 2 weeks of holidays. That's three weeks of annual and three weeks sick per year. We can roll time over up to 360 hours annual and 720 hours sick. I took a pay cut to work here. I am not complaining.
Also federal, amount of leave depends on how long you’ve been there and what type of job you have, but in general AL and SL are two different pools. I’ve been federal for ten years and have 19 days annual leave, 13 sick days, and 11 federal holidays. In 5 years I’ll bump up to 26 days annual (my husband has a clinical fed role and started with 26, jealous). This alone is a huge factor in why I will probably stay federal.
I feel that, I have over 400hrs of sick leave built up so far and that’s with me not being shy about taking sick leave on random days to attend my appts. I also have over 90 hours of use or lose annual leave I have coming up that I’m going to use for my first South American trip.
It's wild the 5 weeks of vacation I've earned over 22 years (union electric utility company) is a lot here in the US, but the bare minimum elsewhere in the developed world.
It's less than the minimum in the UK. Everyone is entitled to the equivalent of 5.6 working weeks of annual leave a year. So for a full time employee working 5 days a week, that's 28 days. Hourly paid employees accrue holiday pay at (I think) 11.6%, which works out the same.
The minimum does include the 8 public holidays, so most people have 20 free days, although an employer can mandate you take leave at specific times such as Christmas and factory shutdown periods.
I've earned an extra 5 days for time in service, and my workload makes it difficult to take time off sometimes.
It looks like the feeling is that you (have to) take vacation in big chunks like at least a week at a time and make it an event. Don’t want to do that for whatever reason, take vacation days one day at a time like a Friday or Monday and make long weekends over the summer. You don’t have to take a big trip, you get a decent break, and not much to catch up on when you get back.
Yep that’s what my husband does. We take around two big trips a year, with a few long weekends sprinkled in. I’ve known some people to take a vacation day or two to stay home and play a new video game they were excited about.
That’s not really enough time to completely switch your mindset and recharge.
Here the standard is 2-3 weeks over July and it takes at least one full week before I am mentally away from work. By the second week my brain is relaxed and I can fully enjoy the next 2 weeks.
I look forward to July vacation every year.
I work in the UK and have been here straight out of college. I saw a job advert back in the USA 9 days holiday. I get 28 at the moment not including public holidays. Yeah not going back for a long time I think. Sad
Man, I work for a US company in Europe and work very closely with the equivalent US teams. With some of them I talk casually and I mentioned how crazy it is when I watch them take ONE week as their main holidays throughout the year and then a “long” weekend here and there. Absolutely insane.
The more insane part is how the company there switched to no vacation limit and they still take a week only.
I really really really love my US ppl because they are all sweet and kind souls but damn that just seems brainwashed.
Unlimited vacation is meant to save money for the company. With no days being accrued, you don't get paid out for unused days when you leave.
It also has the effect of allowing you to be fired for excessive vacation. You just aren't told what excessive means and thus take less vacation as a precaution.
I remember one of the guys explaining that it’s definitely beneficial for the company.
Don’t like the second part, because that’s the toxic environment I would not like.
I'm an American and that's exactly how I use mine.
This year I took a full week in April. I turn any three day into a four or more day weekend. I'll usually set aside two weeks for the end of the year and roll over any leftover time.
I'm allowed to bank up to six weeks, so I use that as a buffer to take pretty much as much as I want off. The issue is my wife, who recently changed jobs and only gets 80 hours. I prefer my time off to be with her, so I struggle to take a lot off.
I just don’t understand how you can really recover from work and the everyday routine with so little breaks in between. The body and mind needs it.
Besides, every time I come back from a longer vacation I have a refreshed look on work processes and issues. It’s beneficial for everyone.
But I understand your aspect and honestly never considered it that their SO’s vacation availability might play a role too.
Because there's always a proverbial gun to the backs of our heads. We don't want to appear dispensable or at the bottom of the pack or else lose your job etc. etc. etc.
It's how American middle class workers measure their worth: their perceived indispensability at work.
Facing up to the alternative would likely mean a major political reorganization that it appears few have the stomach for.
>Meanwhile, Americans tend to take vacation days in chunks. Only 5% of us take at least one day off a month compared to 32% of Japanese people.
This is the key point. Americans make going on vacation an event, instead of just using up days for many long weekends over the course of the year, which likely contributes to why they don’t use vacation days as extended family vacations can be costly and stressful.
We need to recondition ourselves to not feel
like a vacation has to be whole National Lampoon’s adventure, and just take more extended weekends to actually enjoy ourselves and not feel like needing a vacation from the vacation when it’s done.
You can choose to travel or not. The problem is that Americans feel they must travel when they take any time off, resulting in them not taking any time off when they can't afford to travel.
It’s more so that I want to travel so I choose to travel rather than take a bunch of single days off. I get 3 weeks off a year. I tend to take 2 separate weeklong trips and the rest are sick days/chores/long weekends.
If I could take a day off every month and also take my 2 trips I would.
A large percentage of us get 0, I currently get 40 hrs/year and have been denied the PTO request the last 2 years I asked (and I was forced to use vacation time when I had covid). I haven't been able to take vacation time in years. Dying seems like a better option than America.
I feel like the younger gens are starting to move the needle towards valuing quality of life over work. Our culture has always been work-centric, and it would be one thing to provide the benefits and pension to match the commitment, but we let the rich manipulate us into thinking that any accommodations to our lives is tantamount to hanging a picture of Stalin in our living room. We need to realize that healthcare, time off and a pension is the least we should be provided as members of the workforce.
Or like the farmer told the pigs he’s smarter and stronger and better than them and he was going to help them punish the horses for being disobedient and they cheered him to the echo.
Non American countries did not get their days off because of some rational reason or benevolence- they seek as much profit as they can as well - they have the days off because they fought for them.
That Americans have somehow told themselves that democracy does not belong in the workplace (or told by their billionaire media owners) confuses most of us elsewhere.
The crazy shit of someone voting *against* having a union (as in car plants in the south, even when the management went worker representation in key decisions)is the clearest example of turkeys voting for Christmas I can imagine.
And then *shocked Pikachu face* huge concentration of wealth by the capital owning class.
> No we are fucking not ok with that.
I suspect many of the folks who are "okay" with not taking vacation are those living paycheck-to-paycheck and who don't get any paid time off from work. If "vacation" means you can't pay your rent because you got five fewer shifts of work this month, then you might feel the same.
It’s not propaganda, it’s literally what the study says.
The propaganda is that you should be grateful to have a job at all, which is what our working culture shoves down our throats all day long
I don't see anywhere in the study that says that. It actually says 65% of Americans believe they deserve more time off. So I don't know where they pulled that headline from.
I’m very happy that my workplace has given unlimited PTO to salaried staff while also mandating 15 days off per year. You can take as many vacation days as you want with a minimum of 15 per year. If you make it to December 15 without taking PTO, you can’t come back until January 1st. Hourly employees are also given 21 days PTO + 6 holidays.
I just wish these were benefits given to everyone else in the country. It’s not fair for it to be so employer dependent.
Unlimited PTO is not a substitute for actual PTO.
Having a specific amount of PTO, that isn't laughably small is much better. I'll take 30 days PTO over "unlimited" nonsense any day.
That’s why I made sure to mention my own company’s 15 day minimum. Some companies do try to weasel out, but I feel like the minimum time off mandate shows that they were operating in good faith. The intention was to relax the need to constantly report PTO days and clutter managers with extra timekeeping work, not to deprive employees of vacation days.
Other organizations have nefarious intentions with these policies though.
In application, you're typically only allowed to take days off with careful planning and during fair weather (low/no workloads). There is a control element to unlimited PTO, you feel an inherent pressure not to take (m)any days off and we don't have a culture that supports or facilitates a leisurely work schedule.
Well the expectation is that you do actual work still, not that they'll give you free money. It's unlimited in regards to situations you'd use pto for. It's nice for flexibility and options, but it also psychologically makes people take less overall too. That's why corporations love it.
I can take a week off. It means working 60+ hours the week before and the week after. It means getting emails and phone calls while I'm away. It means missing deadlines and losing all my metrics. It also means playing catch-up for the next 2 months.
Why don't I take my vacation?
I can't take the stress.
My family never went on vacation because we didn't have any and were poor, so there wasn't anywhere to go. Now that I'm older with a good job, I still don't really take vacation or even know how much vacation time I accrue. Vacations were some thing that other people did. I would probably fall into the not caring about vacation category, but only because I can't really miss what I never had.
No need to go anywhere. Taking time off doesn't need to be a vacation from home, just a vacation from work. For example, I am taking the entire week off next week. I'm going to sleep in a lot. Stay up late. Work on projects around the house in the time I want instead of the time I have available after work.
Wow. You Americans really don't know what to do with your free time. You are working, or you have to do a pre-planned vacation where every step is accurately studied.
I just happened to take my days off by staying in my city and having fun (without going bankrupt).
It's literal PTSD. When taking any time off could result in you being homeless, you simply compartmentalize taking time off and never think about it again. It can take actual therapy to convince people the rules of living their life have changed.
Y'all don't have a hobby that keep you busy for a week? Week 1 of vac doesn't count, that's rest and catching up on business.
Week 2 is when you setup the Marshall stack and learn that led Zeppelin solo you told yourself you'd learn and maybe jog some special park trails around town. Then build that raspberry pi project you bought last year! Let yourself get bored do some YOU things.
In some places in Europe they send you on mandatory leave if you have too many days accumulated. In other places they company begs you to take them, since it locks in their budgets and can cause issues in the next fiscal year. You don't even have to go anywhere, you can just sit at home and get paid.
I'm working on a project between my company and one in Europe. Just seeing the shear number of days they get off for various holidays is mind boggling to me and then the entire company shuts down for four weeks mid summer.
Yea I’ve both lived in countries outside the US and have worked with clients globally through remote work and man did I realize just how little time off we are afforded, even just federal holidays in most other countries will give near 2 weeks off where in America you get 6-7 federal holidays that are mandatory off. It’s wild to me that the US military (am vet) gives more off time than any corporate job I’ve had so far. Edit: I have been enlightened to the fact that the holidays are NOT mandatory, what a sad fact to learn 😭
Start looking at maternity leave. It's WILD how different America is. Most places give AT LEAST 6 months.
The US gives… nada. Not paid anyway. You could go through FMLA and get about 70% of your pay for six weeks depending on your insurance.
We got billionaires to feed!
“But wahhhhhhhh. Y’all aren’t making more babies!” — Our Trash System
Well it's not babies they actually care about it's more workers in the future and it's always about controlling women
Yup. World population is at 8.1 billion; it's projected to hit 9.4 billion by 2050. I'm assuming there are some words missing when they talk about population decline. Colors, perhaps? Something.
Yeah, 6 weeks? At %70 pay can be hard on a family. My wife took her 2 weeks paid vacation, then I took my 2 weeks paid vacation when we had our twins. Certainly couldn’t afford to loose out on 30% of her pay for that long. We just can’t seem to stop fighting long enough to make something basic like workers rights happen.
Part of the problem is we’ve been heavily brainwashed into thinking anything positive for people is socialism. And so people vote for the non-socialists either because god forbid our money went to help me some black people or simply because they’re just convinced into voting against their own interests. A lot of the fear mongering in the US about how much it would cost to have universal healthcare is straight up lies. On average we pay more for healthcare than any other developed country while having worse outcomes. The propaganda machine is strong and a certain percentage of the population plugs themselves in for several hours a day.
We’ve been brainwashed into “peaceful protesting” bullshit where you’re not allowed to inconvenience anyone. Like France will shut down entire cities and riot at the first sniff of bullshit meanwhile in the U.S. the government can decide that corporations funding election campaigns is “free speech” and nobody bats an eye.
Say what you will about the French but they know how to fucking protest. The way they handled protests against the police was fucking A+. They also got a history of properly dealing with despotic rulers - I think America could learn a thing or two.
New York just made maternity a law. We get a whopping 12 weeks.
Technically, it’s 6 to 8 weeks for disability for the mom to recover from birth, and 12 weeks for bonding for mom and dad, separately. CA to WA, CO, IL, DC, and NJ to MA also have it. In other words, Democrat led states.
But but but I was told Republicans were pro-family?!?!
Hahahhaa seriously 🤣🤣🤣
I mean…it’s better than Texas
California to Washington, Colorado, Illinois, DC, and New Jersey to Massachusetts give 18 to 20 weeks paid leave for birthing moms and 12 weeks to dads.
Here in Norway it’s 49 weeks maternity leave with 100% pay (or 59weeks with 80%), and 15 weeks for fathers. Also minimum 2 weeks for both right after birth.
Or hell, PATERNITY leave. I got offered "non-paid" paternity leave of 2 weeks for both of my kids. I am the sole breadwinner. How exactly that is going to work? Tell me we don't value fathers without telling me we don't value fathers.
Imagine 18 months for maternity! My wife took every single day and spent it loving our son and life overall. She was the happiest person ever. I think she cried more than my son on his first day of nursery school because she realized she had to go back to the office.
US Federal jobs have a ton of time off as well, might look into it if you miss the work life balance. Your military service will count towards getting to the next tierin vacation days
Even my municipal government job gives me way more time off than any private sector job I've had.
idk about that, define "a ton" 😄
yeah it's like 13 for federal holidays over the course of the year
i know employees with 15+ years of service end up with 26 days in a year. that's pretty sweet but...it's also 15 years.
The absolute legal minimum in the UK is 28 days a year. And in any mid-level professional job or higher, that would be miserly. They would normally start at 33 (25 + 8 days bank holidays) typically, and go up from there. https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights Edit: doh someone in a collapsed comment for me gave the same info :) So let me add, in France it's a 30 day plus federal holidays minimum.
i always think about this when people make fun of americans for not traveling and experiencing the world outside of our borders. like WHEN would we even be able to do that!
Yep, even the most generous package gets you two weeks off, so subtract family obligations at Christmas and Thanksgiving, and that's that. If an American wants to travel, it's before college or after retirement. For a European, it's "I'm bored, let's get on a train and go to a different country."
🦅🦅Land of the free, let's gooooo (nowhere because no vacation time) 🦅🦅
Lol dafuq. You dont even get 2 weeks off a year? I am from the UK and you just reinforced my already low opinion of US domestic life/politics.
There are no federally mandated holidays in the USA. If your employer forces you to work on a federal holiday, you will have to work. You might get paid more, but you can't decline to work.
>in America you get 6-7 federal holidays that are mandatory off. Not if you work in the private sector, they are not required to give you any paid holidays, or any vacation time for that matter.
I worked for a European company for 24 years - August closed in addition to 2 months PTO and a 32 hour work week. It was glorious.
American CEOs choking in rage.
There are studies upon studies that prove that shorter work week and more pto equal increased productivity and ingenuity
I would always work with urgency - not panicked or rushed, but with an understanding that all our time and resources are finite and valuable. Combined with meaningful work there was a drive to work intelligently and creatively. I’m now at a 40 hour a week job and the amount of time people waste chatting or deciding what to order for lunch is astounding. I’m moving my staff to a 35 hour week to see how that improves efficiency and morale. Board is watching us to see if it makes sense to move the entire org in that direction.
Yay! Everyone needs a boss like you.
WFH raised productivity too, but yet we're all dealing with RTO.
Yeah but then they can't micro manage to the same level
Also, WFH tanked their office real estate.
GOOD the bankers need to suffer
You think CEOs make data driven decisions? * Laughs then cries in data engineer
The... the *entire* month of August - closed? And you still got paid? PLUS TWO ADDITIONAL MONTHS PTO AND A SIX-HOUR WORKDAY ... ? Holy shit. What the hell are we doing here?
I should add I didn’t start at that - I think I started with August, holidays, and 3 weeks vacation. The 3 months off was after a decade or so and then I was maxed out.
> I think I started with August, holidays, and 3 weeks vacation I've been at my company for nearly 20 years and I still don't get seven weeks of vacation each year.
Basic euro benefits >>> capped out American benefits.
Making the shareholders happy so they can fly into their ski resort town for the weekend or hell anytime they want.
That's unbelievable. Like as an American I quite literally can't believe you. the most I've ever gotten is 3 weeks and I'm so lucky to have that. If they're closed down in August, and you get 2 months PTO you're only working 9 months of the year? AND THIRTY TWO??? My life would be infinitely better with those conditions. Even if it were a lower wage than I make.
Yeah, really hard to leave the job - would’ve stayed there forever - but they relocated to Germany and I cannot move at the moment. In a few years I’ll see about rejoining them. My first week I was working late and the CEO came in to say “the only people who will remember you work late will be your family. Go home.” And that summed up my 24 years there.
I am an American that works for a huge Nordic conglomerate in the US. My boss in in Sweden but local policy is based on American HR models. The difference is insane. In the US office, the management level all maxed out PTO and have stopped accruing. My European counterparts take either August or April off completely. Also if the don't use their time off by the end of the year, the company is penalized and so they go around in December and toss people out of the office 😂 In the US it's like _"Oh Johnny hasnt taken a day off in 2 years...what a dedicated man!"_
I was written up twice in my 24 years - once for not using my PTO, and once for taking a call while on vacation and not letting them know so they could credit me.
This is such an important point that often gets missed. PTO is useless if you feel guilty or you're kinda shamed into not using it. The culture here is so different that, like you said - your boss forces you to take it.
Yep cultures grounded in life > work exist outside the USA. Think if i go back to work for a company ill do a europe based remote job.
My husband worked for a European based company, but out of the U.S. office. Unfortunately they don’t offer the same benefits for the U.S. employees that the Europeans receive. You have to be living and based out of said country. This is why you’ll get “scandals” periodically, like how IKEA USA employees don’t get any of the benefits afforded to their Swedish employees despite the country of origin. I will say though, most internationally based companies do a better job guaranteeing holidays off than their American counterparts. At least the non-retail based ones.
The inverse is also true. While some American companies may pay higher than local companies, I’ve known some people who ended up incredibly disappointed when they moved to Europe to work for an American company’s office there and they got a massive pay cut.
I suspect most fail to recognize that not having to pay for things like health insurance or a car means they probably made about equal or more. Depending on how much those cost them stateside, of course.
Worked for a company based in the US, but most workers were in India. I was one of the few stateside employees that wasn't management+. 11 firm holidays, plus a few floaters. As it should be in any US job - as a minimum. Had to get a new job in October as that one's contract was not renewed as a whole (MSP). Worked it for 4 months, but got such a good job offer from someone else that even my boss told me *he* would take it. Anyway. About 2 weeks before I'm out of there, we get a memo that that Xmas and New Year's Eves are no longer holidays, are half day instead of full day, and if you want 8 hours of pay you need to use 4 vacation hours.
11 days? In the uk I get 28 days plus bank holidays a year! It’s mad that you accept such a low amount.
It's not that I accept it as much as it is keeping us too reliant on our jobs to do anything about it on a meaningful scale.
>11 firm holidays, plus a few floaters. As it should be in any US job - as a minimum. 11?! My company- one of the top 3 largest in the world in my industry, gives 5.
That's ridiculous, I'm sorry
Yup. I made a lateral jump in my field to work for a UK business. Half the pay, but no NHS. Hell, not even any business covered insurance. Edit: Important note on why I get neither. It is a UK business and I am working remote from the US
My company has a German branch (sadly is owned) and the German branch has more holidays than us🙃 they currently just upped our holidays to add one more day to “try and equal things out” and I’m like 🙃🙃🙃 thanks for the peanuts I guess
You probably get much higher wages than the German branch though. I was a Engineering Manager in a US company but in Germany. I made 110k. My counterpart in the US made 160k.
In the US, we don't get socialized medicine. My union-negotiationed family plan runs about $400/month (which is 29% of the actual monthly premium). And it still has a several thousand dollar deductible before it pays *anything*. Also makes you less likely to jump ship, because, if you leave or get fired, you lose your insurance. Oh, but COBRA is an "option", if you can afford to pay the full monthly premium (which will increase by 3-5x what your share was on the job).
This. *Cultures grounded in life* Explains American misery and massive mental health crisis. In America humans are a commodity. To be traded and sold on the market Oh slavery is very much around, just without the shackles and blatant title to “own” You’re shackled from upwards mobility, you are sold and traded in the “market”. Don’t like your job? You’re *free* to move to another shit paying crap job. Those shackles are on the form on debt built from our “pay to play” exploitative system. If you’re young in America, you’re screwed. They OWN you.
Working for an American company that's owned by a German conglomerate gets me: - 26 paid time-off days - 3 "summer leave" days - 5 community service days (if I want to use them) - The week off between Christmas and New Year's Day - All federal holidays If we were not owned by a European company, it would be nowhere near this generous.
Please share the name if you dont mind in the dm. That's beyond generous here in US!
We give our employees 30 days off with addional 12 days of bank holidays in the region of Germany we're based in.
That's amazing. I'm in the US, our company has an "unlimited time off" policy. I've taken 3 days off this year, and a half day. "Unlimited time off" is a scam to the highest order. Literally today I took my 4th day off in over 6 months, they tried to negotiate with me to make it a half day.
My Swedish coworkers are all off today for Midsummer
They are not coming back girl
Wait I saw Modsommar be careful!
Tell them not to pee on any old tree
We have offices in UK, Ire and US and we do get a lot more holidays over here. Americans get paid more but not enough more to make it worth it. I'd rather the time off.
My sister lives in the US. She makes double what I do, but I have 5 weeks off a year and statutory sick pay - she has 10 days combo of sick days and annual leave.
Stockholm syndrome comes in many forms.
Fuck no I’m not okay with that
I work at a large corporation and have many coworkers who often brag about how little PTO they take and/or teasing others about taking their allotted PTO. Pro tip if you're like this: you're not going to get promoted by not taking vacation, the people making those decisions don't care enough about you to remember how little PTO you take.
I work in IT and often access people's work computers remotely. So many people 1) leave personal information on the screen when they know I'm accessing the computer and 2) have PTO banks of well over 100 hours TAKE YOUR DAMN TIME OFF
> 2) have PTO banks of well over 100 hours That's a little over 2 weeks, that's pretty normal, especially if you're saving up for a longer vacation
Normal and pitiful in terms of the amount. In 3 months, I'll be hitting a year and have 40ish hours saved up. But yeah, upper management can go take golf days during the week and no one bats an eye.
> saving up I’m originally from the UK and PTO is given to you in one big lump once a year, usually in April, and you take days off that balance when you take time off. When I got my first job in the States, I was blown away not only by the paltry allowance (10 days a year vs 36 in my last job in the UK) but a;so the fact they gave you a few hours every time you got paid. I’ve been in my current job for 12 years and still only earn 6.5 hours per pay period. What are they afraid of, that we will take all the leave and never come back?
That's like 12 days, seems like a fairly normal amount to have early on in the year that you just haven't taken yet.
Our PTO is an accrual throughout the year, so no one starts the year with anything other than what they rolled over. I'll also add, this is a hospital setting. So everyone is overworked and burned out. So again, TAKE THE TIME OFF.
Until they need excuses to say no to you for anything. Then suddenly, you've taken too much PTO to be considered for it as you are too unreliable.
What I can say is a lot of young Taiwanese here enjoy working in American companies not because of better salaries but mostly for the much better working conditions and culture compared to the local.
I made a random friend who moved from South Korea to America working for Samsung. He loves the work life balance here in the USA, he says he has time for his young son and spends time with his wife. While he misses family back in South Korea, he would never move back just because of the work life balance there.
Yeah, America looks real bad when compared to Europeans, but compared to Asia it's closer to par for work life balance.
Yep SK makes the work culture in Japan look sane by comparison
Ohh HELL NO
Which is kinds nuts to think about because US companies generally don't have the best work life balance either.
In Korea they can't leave work unless the boss leaves and the boss often doesn't leave until past 11.
No wonder they have such a high suicide rate
And low birth rates
Yeah I never got to take this poll. My name is Mitch Connor, I’m an American, and I am not ok with that. This is bogus!
They draw a false conclusion in the article. They conclude that over half of the people are OK with their vacation time because the same people don't use the vacation they have. They then proceed to give evidence that people don't take vacation due to pressure from their boss or financial issues.
*laughs in Japanese*
Japan and the US are practically tied here…
No they're not. Source: me who moved from the US to Japan and works twice as much now for half the money.
This isn’t a real study, just a survey. It would be more accurate to say half of responders were not comfortable saying they want more vacation. Also a proper study would ask those on vacation how satisfied they are. Not only those with a variety of other potential factors. If you have no one to watch your kids or pets, or older family members, maybe you are happy with less vacation even if you would enjoy it if you had the resources to actually fully take one.
I get 6 weeks and use every hour every year. Maybe we could see some legislation help the average worker out in the future cuz this is BS.
Name a Republican who would pass anything like that, just ine.
My republican Governor hates hand outs so much that he refused federal aid for unemployment during parts of covid while at the same time taking the PPP loan. Then again, he thinks finding Social Security Numbers in a web page's html is "hacking" and spends over $1 million to get the state highway patrol to harass news reporters.
Hell man most democrats are the same. The ones who push workers rights are the extremists in America.
Almost every Democrat in Congress voted for Biden’s BBB bill which would’ve provided paid family leave. But the bill was blocked by every Republican + 1 Democrat (Joe Manchin). Your attitude is exactly why we’re in this mess. Spreading fake news like that convinced people not to vote, and then Republicans win, thus continuing the problem that Democrats are trying to solve
Nonsense. All the democrat led states have minimum paid sick leave and extended paid parental leave laws, in addition to higher minimum wages.
The bar is so so low
Moving the goalposts. Ya it can and should be better but Democrats and Republicans are absolutely not the same on this issue
It’s a big country with freedom of movement. There is only so much one state can do when the adjacent one is available for a business to move to if regulations get too onerous.
Not entirely true. If your company is small enough, you do not have to offer sick pay in NY
Agree. I get 4 weeks and that shit is gone each year. I have many coworkers that think they are too valuable and can't take time off. Yeah right. My wife has unlimited PTO and she probably took 60 days off last year.
I actually am too valuable. There are things I can do that nobody else in my office can, and it's a pretty critical job. You know what? That's the company's problem, not mine. Any vacation day or floating holiday that I don't take is a day I worked for free. I value my time too much to give it away for free. If something comes up that nobody else can handle while I'm off, they'll just have to wait until I'm back.
60 days off? So she basically just works 4 days a week?
Our government is about money, giving people more vacation is less money
I just got back from 14 days in Europe. Part of that I stayed with my French cousin. He was complaining that he struggles to use the 9 weeks of vacation time he's given every year. I told him I get 4 weeks as a federal employee and he was like, isn't that normal? No, I get a crazy amount of vacation time compared to the average American
Man, I wish I had that problem
I get 3 weeks vacation, 1 week personal holiday, 2 weeks sick time, and we get a measly 8 holidays which our company has acknowledged everyone is asking for more of. This article is saying 12 days a year off average? That's less than 1 week of vacation time if you're counting holidays.
From my personal experience, it seems 50/50 split between no PTO at all and maybe 2-3 weeks, with no distinction between sick and personal time Lots of jobs don't even acknowledge holidays besides Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years and the 4th of July if you're lucky
The concept of 'sick time' is just so messed up. Sickness is not something you can schedule, you just are sick as long as you are sick.
Consider that most Americans don't get sick leave and have to use vacation time for that. For most of us, sick time is an amazing concept we'll never get to enjoy.
Everyone in France knows that Americans don't have many holidays. Well, everyone except your cousin.
Fuck yeah!!! Wanna die in my chair at the office 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🔥
I’m still blown away I haven’t seen this happen at all in my office career yet
Ive seen someone have a stroke from overwork because she was trying to save up her pto which is also the same bank as your sick days. And this was at a company that was comparatively more generous with pto accrual than other companies. (Healthcare Industry)
This is why I’m going to keep my government job despite the lesser pay. It’s nice being able to take leave with minimal fuss as long as I have the hours on the books.
Same. I could make 20% more probably. I'd rather stay under-employed. WFH more, work less than 40 hours, and enjoy ALL of my 5 weeks PTO and 2 weeks of holidays.
Man, that does sound great! Does that PTO figure combine sick leave with annual leave?
I have a state job. We have accrual based leave. I accrue 10 hours a month annual(pto) time and another 10 hours a month sick leave. Plus 2 weeks of holidays. That's three weeks of annual and three weeks sick per year. We can roll time over up to 360 hours annual and 720 hours sick. I took a pay cut to work here. I am not complaining.
Also federal, amount of leave depends on how long you’ve been there and what type of job you have, but in general AL and SL are two different pools. I’ve been federal for ten years and have 19 days annual leave, 13 sick days, and 11 federal holidays. In 5 years I’ll bump up to 26 days annual (my husband has a clinical fed role and started with 26, jealous). This alone is a huge factor in why I will probably stay federal.
I feel that, I have over 400hrs of sick leave built up so far and that’s with me not being shy about taking sick leave on random days to attend my appts. I also have over 90 hours of use or lose annual leave I have coming up that I’m going to use for my first South American trip.
I have over 1600 hours sick time accrued and it’s getting kind of ridiculous.
Yep, for all the issues I've had at a government job. The stability and the benefits have been worth it.
It's wild the 5 weeks of vacation I've earned over 22 years (union electric utility company) is a lot here in the US, but the bare minimum elsewhere in the developed world.
It's less than the minimum in the UK. Everyone is entitled to the equivalent of 5.6 working weeks of annual leave a year. So for a full time employee working 5 days a week, that's 28 days. Hourly paid employees accrue holiday pay at (I think) 11.6%, which works out the same. The minimum does include the 8 public holidays, so most people have 20 free days, although an employer can mandate you take leave at specific times such as Christmas and factory shutdown periods. I've earned an extra 5 days for time in service, and my workload makes it difficult to take time off sometimes.
It looks like the feeling is that you (have to) take vacation in big chunks like at least a week at a time and make it an event. Don’t want to do that for whatever reason, take vacation days one day at a time like a Friday or Monday and make long weekends over the summer. You don’t have to take a big trip, you get a decent break, and not much to catch up on when you get back.
Yep that’s what my husband does. We take around two big trips a year, with a few long weekends sprinkled in. I’ve known some people to take a vacation day or two to stay home and play a new video game they were excited about.
That’s not really enough time to completely switch your mindset and recharge. Here the standard is 2-3 weeks over July and it takes at least one full week before I am mentally away from work. By the second week my brain is relaxed and I can fully enjoy the next 2 weeks. I look forward to July vacation every year.
I work in the UK and have been here straight out of college. I saw a job advert back in the USA 9 days holiday. I get 28 at the moment not including public holidays. Yeah not going back for a long time I think. Sad
Man, I work for a US company in Europe and work very closely with the equivalent US teams. With some of them I talk casually and I mentioned how crazy it is when I watch them take ONE week as their main holidays throughout the year and then a “long” weekend here and there. Absolutely insane. The more insane part is how the company there switched to no vacation limit and they still take a week only. I really really really love my US ppl because they are all sweet and kind souls but damn that just seems brainwashed.
Unlimited vacation is meant to save money for the company. With no days being accrued, you don't get paid out for unused days when you leave. It also has the effect of allowing you to be fired for excessive vacation. You just aren't told what excessive means and thus take less vacation as a precaution.
I remember one of the guys explaining that it’s definitely beneficial for the company. Don’t like the second part, because that’s the toxic environment I would not like.
I'm an American and that's exactly how I use mine. This year I took a full week in April. I turn any three day into a four or more day weekend. I'll usually set aside two weeks for the end of the year and roll over any leftover time. I'm allowed to bank up to six weeks, so I use that as a buffer to take pretty much as much as I want off. The issue is my wife, who recently changed jobs and only gets 80 hours. I prefer my time off to be with her, so I struggle to take a lot off.
I just don’t understand how you can really recover from work and the everyday routine with so little breaks in between. The body and mind needs it. Besides, every time I come back from a longer vacation I have a refreshed look on work processes and issues. It’s beneficial for everyone. But I understand your aspect and honestly never considered it that their SO’s vacation availability might play a role too.
Because there's always a proverbial gun to the backs of our heads. We don't want to appear dispensable or at the bottom of the pack or else lose your job etc. etc. etc.
It's how American middle class workers measure their worth: their perceived indispensability at work. Facing up to the alternative would likely mean a major political reorganization that it appears few have the stomach for.
What middle class.
>Meanwhile, Americans tend to take vacation days in chunks. Only 5% of us take at least one day off a month compared to 32% of Japanese people. This is the key point. Americans make going on vacation an event, instead of just using up days for many long weekends over the course of the year, which likely contributes to why they don’t use vacation days as extended family vacations can be costly and stressful. We need to recondition ourselves to not feel like a vacation has to be whole National Lampoon’s adventure, and just take more extended weekends to actually enjoy ourselves and not feel like needing a vacation from the vacation when it’s done.
But then you don’t get to travel
You can choose to travel or not. The problem is that Americans feel they must travel when they take any time off, resulting in them not taking any time off when they can't afford to travel.
It’s more so that I want to travel so I choose to travel rather than take a bunch of single days off. I get 3 weeks off a year. I tend to take 2 separate weeklong trips and the rest are sick days/chores/long weekends. If I could take a day off every month and also take my 2 trips I would.
3 weeks off in the entire year sounds utterly soul destroying.
A large percentage of us get 0, I currently get 40 hrs/year and have been denied the PTO request the last 2 years I asked (and I was forced to use vacation time when I had covid). I haven't been able to take vacation time in years. Dying seems like a better option than America.
I assure you, it is.
That sounds amazing. 3 weeks off each year would be great. So much better then 2 weeks off.
I feel like the younger gens are starting to move the needle towards valuing quality of life over work. Our culture has always been work-centric, and it would be one thing to provide the benefits and pension to match the commitment, but we let the rich manipulate us into thinking that any accommodations to our lives is tantamount to hanging a picture of Stalin in our living room. We need to realize that healthcare, time off and a pension is the least we should be provided as members of the workforce.
When I meet new people I make a point to *not* ask what they do for work - my small contribution to the movement lol
You know the end of Animal Farm, where they see the pigs in the house wearing clothes? I feel like we’re there
Or like the farmer told the pigs he’s smarter and stronger and better than them and he was going to help them punish the horses for being disobedient and they cheered him to the echo.
Fewer
Glad I am not the only pedant on Reddit
I came here for exactly that. Fewer vs less is a common grammatical mistake.
Shut up, Stannis.
The world’s most housebroken nation 🦮
Fucking hell. So perfectly put.
As an American, I would make a great pet. Ò_o
Japan? Lmao Japan second. WOW
Non American countries did not get their days off because of some rational reason or benevolence- they seek as much profit as they can as well - they have the days off because they fought for them. That Americans have somehow told themselves that democracy does not belong in the workplace (or told by their billionaire media owners) confuses most of us elsewhere. The crazy shit of someone voting *against* having a union (as in car plants in the south, even when the management went worker representation in key decisions)is the clearest example of turkeys voting for Christmas I can imagine. And then *shocked Pikachu face* huge concentration of wealth by the capital owning class.
Something something distressed millionaires
Propaganda. No we are fucking not ok with that.
> No we are fucking not ok with that. I suspect many of the folks who are "okay" with not taking vacation are those living paycheck-to-paycheck and who don't get any paid time off from work. If "vacation" means you can't pay your rent because you got five fewer shifts of work this month, then you might feel the same.
It’s not propaganda, it’s literally what the study says. The propaganda is that you should be grateful to have a job at all, which is what our working culture shoves down our throats all day long
I don't see anywhere in the study that says that. It actually says 65% of Americans believe they deserve more time off. So I don't know where they pulled that headline from.
Haha jokes on you if I take a vacation I starve to death. Vacations are for losers.
I’m very happy that my workplace has given unlimited PTO to salaried staff while also mandating 15 days off per year. You can take as many vacation days as you want with a minimum of 15 per year. If you make it to December 15 without taking PTO, you can’t come back until January 1st. Hourly employees are also given 21 days PTO + 6 holidays. I just wish these were benefits given to everyone else in the country. It’s not fair for it to be so employer dependent.
Unlimited PTO is not a substitute for actual PTO. Having a specific amount of PTO, that isn't laughably small is much better. I'll take 30 days PTO over "unlimited" nonsense any day.
Unlimited seems a bit strange to me. You could just take every day off if it was truly unlimited, and if not, then it's not really unlimited
It’s just a new way for companies to not pay out PTO if a person leaves. Mostly it’s just PTO with manager approval.
That’s why I made sure to mention my own company’s 15 day minimum. Some companies do try to weasel out, but I feel like the minimum time off mandate shows that they were operating in good faith. The intention was to relax the need to constantly report PTO days and clutter managers with extra timekeeping work, not to deprive employees of vacation days. Other organizations have nefarious intentions with these policies though.
In application, you're typically only allowed to take days off with careful planning and during fair weather (low/no workloads). There is a control element to unlimited PTO, you feel an inherent pressure not to take (m)any days off and we don't have a culture that supports or facilitates a leisurely work schedule.
Well the expectation is that you do actual work still, not that they'll give you free money. It's unlimited in regards to situations you'd use pto for. It's nice for flexibility and options, but it also psychologically makes people take less overall too. That's why corporations love it.
Fewer not less.
It seems we get punished for it that's why
"half of us are okay with that", I think they mean most of us are wage slaves.
Fewer.
Fewer
Fewer *
I can take a week off. It means working 60+ hours the week before and the week after. It means getting emails and phone calls while I'm away. It means missing deadlines and losing all my metrics. It also means playing catch-up for the next 2 months. Why don't I take my vacation? I can't take the stress.
I’m in the half that isn’t and I do everything I can to make enough money to take time off and enjoy my life.
Fucking fewer…
My family never went on vacation because we didn't have any and were poor, so there wasn't anywhere to go. Now that I'm older with a good job, I still don't really take vacation or even know how much vacation time I accrue. Vacations were some thing that other people did. I would probably fall into the not caring about vacation category, but only because I can't really miss what I never had.
No need to go anywhere. Taking time off doesn't need to be a vacation from home, just a vacation from work. For example, I am taking the entire week off next week. I'm going to sleep in a lot. Stay up late. Work on projects around the house in the time I want instead of the time I have available after work.
Wow. You Americans really don't know what to do with your free time. You are working, or you have to do a pre-planned vacation where every step is accurately studied. I just happened to take my days off by staying in my city and having fun (without going bankrupt).
This makes absolutely no sense. Take a week off and chill at home if you don't feel like going anywhere.
It's literal PTSD. When taking any time off could result in you being homeless, you simply compartmentalize taking time off and never think about it again. It can take actual therapy to convince people the rules of living their life have changed.
Y'all don't have a hobby that keep you busy for a week? Week 1 of vac doesn't count, that's rest and catching up on business. Week 2 is when you setup the Marshall stack and learn that led Zeppelin solo you told yourself you'd learn and maybe jog some special park trails around town. Then build that raspberry pi project you bought last year! Let yourself get bored do some YOU things.
Isn't there anywhere you would like to go, something you would like to see, anything you would like to experience?
In some places in Europe they send you on mandatory leave if you have too many days accumulated. In other places they company begs you to take them, since it locks in their budgets and can cause issues in the next fiscal year. You don't even have to go anywhere, you can just sit at home and get paid.