From: ttraub@world.std.com (Terry Traub)
Subject: Re: Why do Americans get so little vacation time?
Keywords: work vacation
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 22:10:37 GMT

In article <1992Aug12.193508.11810@cs.ucla.edu> gds@cs.ucla.edu (Greg Skinner) writes:
>In article <1992Aug11.233841.25067@bnr.ca> labiche@crchh561.BNR.CA (Maurice LaBiche) writes:
>>I'm also puzzled by this fact(and a little pissed off too).
>>Is it really that this lack of slack time keeps our economy
>>from heading down the tubes?  I can't believe that.  I wish
>>this would change soon but I'm sure the big $ interests will
>>try and keep this from happening, the old lost productivity line 
>>again.  It's enough to make you think how civil this country 
>>really is or isn't.  This is just another reason to re-evaluate
>>the claim that americans live 'better' than people anywhere else!
>
>I believe that Americans tend to work *harder* (ie. more) than
>Europeans, but not necessarily *smarter*.  For example, take
>international railway transportation in Europe.  It is much much more
>efficient and available than in the US (not to mention cleaner and
>safer, modulo getting your baggage stolen by gypsies).  Yet, European
>transit workers get more vacation than American transit workers.
>Also, the money they make has more buying power than that made in the
>US.
>
>My guess is that most American companies don't believe they could
>afford to pay American workers 5-6 weeks of vacation because they
>believe project deadlines would slip, etc., resulting in loss of
>incoming business (ie. revenue).  However, some companies are now
>trying to encourage employees to take vacation.  Sometimes, people
>become so wrapped up in work that they forget that they actually have
>vacation.  Also, there may be some problem in company budgets if not
>enough of the money they allocate to paid vacation is used.  Some
>companies also discontinued paid overtime (instead making employees
>take comp time) because people would work so much overtime that the
>companies could not pay employees' salaries.
>
>--gregbo


Americans don't work smarter than Europeans (or Japanese, or others in
the world)?  How then is it that Americans managed to land people on
the moon not once but several times, not to mention building a
reusable space shuttle, developing and commercializing computers,
solar cells, jet planes, and, by the way, winning two world wars against
some of these "smarter" people?  I propose that Americans are
***different** in the way they work, not necessarily less smart.  Here
is the land of freedom:  you can win big, and you can lose big.  We
don't have the patronizing, "big brother knows best" approach of some
of our overseas friends, but we can more easily do what we want and,
yes, we tolerate diversity more than most other places.

As for vacations, I agree that these longer vacations are an excellent
idea.  Having just made the transition to independent consultant from
corporate geek, I have already enjoyed having several weeks of
part-time vacation in which to regroup, plan, and just plain relax
after several years of high power software work with no real vacation
to speak of, just little days off here and there.  It might not work
for every company, e.g. a factory can't afford to simply close 5 weeks
out of the year, but applied creatively is a good idea.  But let's not
let the damn unions drive this one--no flexibility that way.


Terry
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