"Hatunen" wrote ...
On 21 Aug 2006 23:55:06 -0700, wrote:
Hatunen wrote:
On 21 Aug 2006 08:27:02 -0700, "Jordi"
wrote:
"About 25 percent of American workers in the private sector do not get
any paid vacation time, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Another
33 percent will take only a seven-day vacation, including a weekend."
How does that work? They don't take the other weekend? Taking a
vacation for a week means five days of not working and four days
of weekend for a nine day total.
At least here, that would be called a 7-day vacation (Monday - Sunday),
the first weekend would be part of the last working week,
I hope that kind of thinking doesn't prevent them from going on
holiday on the first weekend.
I'll opine in two manifestations of vacation/no vacation overlooked so far
here by both 'Merkins, Uropeens and even the random Ozmandian or two.
1. In legend if not in fact tradition holds that most of us USAians don't
work very hard anyway, and that at both ends of the compensation spectrum
don't work very hard, given too long lunches, excessive coffee breaks, and
much MS Solitaire or wandering about the 'net. We take lots of short
vacations.
2. In my case, living in a less densely populated area, vacation-like
things are easy and accessible...
The weather makes outdoor recreation doable 10 months a year (and golf year
around except for a handful of weather days). Golf, fresh water fishing,
tennis, swimming, boating, big time college sports watching, skeet shooting,
bird hunting, and a variety of standard vacation sort of things are
available within a 20 minute drive, while I can hunt deer an hour away. My
favorite, salt water fishing is a longer drive, four hours, but the vast
shallow bay in which I fish is next to one of the country's better known
wildlife preserves, has few visitors per acre and provides estuarial
solitude unknown elesewhere.
Between several private and municipal courses, golf tee times mean simply
showing up, while rarely are the tennis courts full. I live in the land of
lazy men, not viewing vacation trips as relaxing, relaxing beaing an
adjective to describe simply recreating around here. Unfortunatrely, few
Europeans who visit the US become acquainted with the lifestyles of much of
the "sub-surban" US, quiet and leafy streets and country lanes where folks
live in relative solitude and it ain't far to "Far from the Madding Crowd".
I never really thought about it, but for 34 years my family lived on the far
edge of a city, nearly as isolated from neighbors as some crofter in rural
Scotland, our kids hauled by yellow school busses, the trade out long drives
to the supermarket, etc., an easy tradeout when you learned to go but once a
week.
I really can't imagine 30 days of uninterrupted vacating.....other than an
extended trip to some far corner of the earth, finacially not really
available for many, especially during those years when the burden of kids
about to be or in college meant a major burden on pre-tax cash flow. These
days, in 30 days away, the damn obituary pages would have stacked up, filled
with familiar names. I can hardly go 30 days without serving asa
pallbearer.
TMO
TMO