July 5, 2005
From the desk of Jane Galt:Why don't Americans take more vacations?
Apparently, Tom Friedman asserted that one of the reasons that Europe is stagnating is that Europeans don't work hard enough. Apparently, a lot of liberals take issue with this. European quality of life, they say, is just as good as ours; it's just that they consume more of their income as leisure, rather than cash or goods.
Possibly, this is true. Having just spent three months in London, and working as I do for a European company, I surmised that my thoughts on the subject must be useful. One hears a lot from Europeans who come to America and chafe under our working hours--this is appalling! Inhuman! Chattel slavery!--but rarely from Americans who have gone the other way.
Undoubtedly, it is nice to have more vacation. I have an amount that makes my friends scream with envy, to be frank. But there are real costs to that, on both sides of the employer-employee relationship. The amount of vacation that Brits take (and they're pikers compared to the continentals), makes it harder to get things done if you work on a team, particularly in the summer, because someone's always away. You can compensate by spreading tasks between more than one person, or having backups fill in, but then you lose the productivity benefits that specialisation incurs. So companies lose, not merely the extra value of the hours worked, but substantial productivity during the hours people are working, as the co-ordination problems mount. In most fields, I would think that a reduction in working hours would be a more effective way to provide extra leisure than extra vacation.
On the employee side, of course, extra vacation comes at the expense of wages. That means that one often has no place to go. Europeans often end up using vacation days to paint, clean their house, and other things that Americans in similar jobs would pay someone to do. If a surgeon takes a week off to re-tile his bathroom, this is not a net benefit to either the surgeon, or society, unless he is one of those rare folks who really enjoys grouting.
The economic question is, of course, "if more leisure is so great, why do people have to be forced to take it?" Is it because there are co-ordination problems (my American colleagues and I, especially the ones who are part of couples, often end up with a lot of unused vacation, because we have no one to travel with)? Is it because of the signalling problem--companies (erroneously) identify employees who value leisure over money as slackers--and if so, how do you force more vacation on American go-getters, who often forgoe the vacation they already have? Is it the co-ordination problem I identified earlier (but if so, that's a legitimate reason not to enforce longer vacations). Or is it because a politically powerful group that values leisure is using the government to force its preferences on everyone else? All the Europeans I know certainly seem to value their vacation highly--but on the other hand, few of them have ever been offered cold, hard cash for their unused days.
Posted by Jane Galt at July 5, 2005 2:27 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links"if more leisure is so great, why do people have to be forced to take it?"
Where did that come from? Who forces people to take vacation? When and where does it happen? I think we need to know that before we are to speculate on why it happens. :-)
This report contains information along the same lines, and a potential answer to the question "Why are Europeans so keen on long vacations?"
Europeans are less able to afford labor-saving devices like washing machines, dishwashers, and automobiles, and spend more of their leisure time on manual household labor. I remember a conversation with a fellow student from Scotland. I complained about the lack of dishwashers in student housing, whereupon he informed me that even the most desirable lodging at St. Andrews was serviced by coin-operated heaters. Quantifying the economic effects is beyond me, but my gut tells me that it must pay to keep up the facilities.
Being an entrepeneur, and having launched TechnicalVideoRental.com two and a half years ago (a) I need to be in the office all the time; if I'm out, I have to pay someone else to be a poor imitation of me (something I have no money for); (b) to take even a minimal vacation takes money...and I'm churning 100% of my profits back into the business (actually, more than 100%, as both the business and I are going into debt to grow sales).
I understand that Europe has a lower rate of entrepeneurism; that may factor into the vacation stats.
> Where did that come from? Who forces people to take vacation? When and where does it happen?
Many companies have "use it or lose it" policies wrt vacation accrual beyond a certain point.
" lot of liberals take issue with this. European quality of life, they say, is just as good as ours"
Who for, instance, takes issue with this?
The annual I can use up it's the sick leave that gets ridiculess.
Esp. with centralized wage bargaining, such as with strong unions or for the government, there was a tendency in the Netherlands to give additional days off instead of raises. Due to the high tax rates, more benefits for the employee at a relatively lower cost.
If I have some holidays left over at the end of the year, I can get paid for them, but again due to taxes the amount I receive is so paltry I'd rather sit on my *ss for a day.
I noticed that too in the UK - someone was always away.
In NZ people often choose more holidays above the 3 week minimum (currently). Some employers offer it to attract more staff, other people I know have voted for more holiday rather than higher pay directly. And that happened before in the voluntary (before it was made the minimum) shift from two weeks holiday to three. So I doubt there is some massive coordination problem out there.
Of course in NZ it is complicated by the habit young Kiwis have of quitting their current job and heading off overseas for a year or two, which given the distances involved and the jet-lags, is a far more effective way of seeing Europe, Africa and the Middle East than of taking even 5 weeks holiday a year. Doesn't show up in the officially collected statistics though, as the people doing it leave the country.
Don't Americans take more vacation than you're implying, Jane? Sure, we have 260 work days per year, minus about 10 for holidays, and another 10 for the "standard" two weeks of vacation. Don't most companies, however, and all the governments, give more vacation after a few years on the job? I think a lot of people are up to three or even four weeks after less than 10 years with the company. That puts us closer to the Europeans. We do have more churn in our labor markets, so there are fewer people getting that seniority, and I don't know what fraction of the labor force works in the very smallest businesses that don't have established personnel policies. We work more than Europeans, but I doubt the difference is quite as stark as you might expect; we DO like to take vacation. I bet the real difference in hours worked per year comes from shorter working hours, not from more vacation.
Off topic, Jane, you need to make fun of Brad DeLong and the discussion on TPM Cafe about what their ideal Social Security system would be. DeLong's system is basically, "Just like SS is now, but automatically adjusting taxes, benefits, and retirement ages to stay solvent." Maybe one needs a Ph.D. in economics to see the brilliance of that, since I, with only a B.A. in the field, think that's the dumbest thing I've heard all day.
I recently lost about 75 hours of earned vacation because I couldn't carry it over into the fiscal year-- this was 75 hours in addition to the 360 hours I am able to carry over (earned at a rate of 3 weeks/year), and that should give you an idea of how much vacation I'm taking in general. The way I see it, dinking around at home or in town (I'm in the city) is expensive enough and frankly boring that I'd just as soon go to work and earn another, what, $100/day or whatever. Nobody forced me to take the vacation, and at the end of the fiscal year, they don't necessarily want me gone for too long anyway, hard as it is with all the other people out.
I did get a bit of grief from my more vacation-loving coworkers, and yeah, I wish I could get a pay-out instead of just losing the days.
When I was a child, my mother worked for a large Bank. At her status (Vice President) she was given five weeks of vacation a year (later it was reduced to four), two of which had to be taken at the same time because, given that she was working at a bank, they had to MAKE SURE she was not embezzling. Keep in mind she worked in a variety of departments none of which had anything to do with getting her grubby mitts on any of the bank's money, but that was irrelevent. The lunch ladies were required to take two weeks off per year. It was policy.
So you had to have someone who could do your job at the Bank because two weeks was too long to go away without someone knowing what you did. It cut down on waste, because you know someone would catch you after two weeks if all you did was twiddle your thumbs. It also meant that no ONE person was indespensible. Someone always had to understand the complexities of your job. This was before the days of blackberrys and email and I don't ever recall my mother getting a phonecall when we were on vacation. I'm not even sure she was allowed to be called during the two weeks. Without cell phones it would have been impossible to reach her anyway. Somehow the world kept spinning. The Bank kept being sucessful.
When I got married I worked at a law firm. I took two and a half weeks off for my subsequent wedding and honeymoon. I had gone through the files meticulously before I left. Everything was tidy and easy to find. I left charts where people could find things. I trained someone to do my job. A few months before my wedding I even had Jury Duty and found this a perfect opportunity to do a dry run.
I recieved a half dozen calls from my office while getting married and on my honeymoon. None of it was important. None of it couldn't wait. And none of it couldn't have been handled by my replacement, who was never bothered once.
Redundancies should be built in as part of corporate efficency. But in this day and age of PDAs and cell phones there is no need for the redundancy, except for the mental health of the employee. And what corporate task master cares about that.
I suspect it depends on what kind of job you have. None of my projects require me to be in the office every day all day (face time requirements are a different story) and very few of my projects are solitary. Yet here I sit, day after day, vacation within six weeks and I already am thinking about what numbers to give, who to contact in case of emergency. It all shouldn't be necessary. Enough people know what I do.
By the way, all the doctors and lawyers I know in the UK have every modern convience and are not taking weekends off to dry wall. In addition I think there are many of us who would rather have the option of six weeks of vacation and a reduced salary. I certainly know I would be one of them.
I really gotta say -- what the heck would you do with four weeks off? I'm a graduate student doing chemistry -- I essentially work every day. Right now, I could use three days off; after that, I'd be climbing the walls. (I suppose that part of this has to do with having the money to spend that vacation time interestingly.)
To answer the original question, I'd guess that days off were extraordinarily valuable to the factory worker performing physical labor; that's probably where the tradition of vacation came from. After that, it was probably companies one-upping each other. (I also like Daran's answer.)
There's also likely some competition and peer pressure involved. No one in the US wants to break ranks and look lazy, so they don't go on vacation. In Europe, everyone takes days off, so it's fine.
I'd go stir crazy on weeks long vacations, as well.
Two to three days are fine for me.
Anything longer, and I want to go back to work.
To answer the question of what you do with all the vacation:
You travel.
My husband and I have family in Philadelphia, Washington DC, Maine, New Hampshire, Maasachusettes, Illinois, Kentucky and Michigan in the US, Norway and New Zealand abroad.
We have friends in Florida, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maryland, Maine, Georgia, Texas, Illinois, California, Washinton State, Washinton DC, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska in the US and Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Hungary, the UK, Russia and China abroad.
I like to visit them all on occasion. You can get cheap flights and most of them have spare bedrooms we can stay in. It's quite economical.
Very true Jane. While the French people were on extended vacations last summer, they left their elderly home to die with no air conditioning.
Seriously, what would I do with more vacation? I'm entry-level so it's not like I could afford to go to many places anyway, and I get bored on the weekends let alone off for a week in town. If I'm at the company five years I get three weeks, after 10 it's four...maybe I'll be there that long, maybe I won't.
What, don't people know how to be alone or entertain themselves? You like your jobs that much? I treasure not being in the office. I *so* don't want to be in the office. At my company we get 3 weeks at 2 years and 4 weeks at 10 years. I'm at 8 years and I'm always out of vacation half way through the fiscal year. Maybe I'm just lucky to work for a company that encourages people to use their vacation and doesn't give credence to the "slackers take vacations" idea. Holy fuck what a screwed up world we live in.
One weekend, Tim? I can do absolutely nothing for a good two weeks before I get bored. I'd just spend my vacation sleeping 12 hours a day and watching TV, or playing computer games, or something. On the other hand, it's nothing to get excited about, so no, I guess I don't need vacation.
My Gawd People...get a life.
What a bunch of brain dead lemmings. Too afraid to 'break ranks' with the other drones out of fear of appearing lazy?!! If your co workers and boss have a problem with you taking the pitiful few days off that you are alloted, you need to find a better way to make a living.
And people seriously wonder why the country is in the shape its in. We're a nation of shut-in neurotics who don't even know how to relax enough to take a vacation? We're not talking about trekking to Kuala Lumpor here...just a simple vacation. What...you can't afford a tank of gas and a road atlas?
Take a hint. Turn off the tv for three months, get to know the neighbors on either side of you, join a club or any group you think you'd like...and for gawds sake loosen up!!! At the end of your employment, the boss has had 20 years of you...and you have been graciously granted several months back. What do you have in return...for your life?
You know what it costs to own and operate a car around here?
No, I don't know what it costs to own and operate a car around *there.* *Here,* it costs less than $5,000 per year to own and operate a 1998 Saturn and a 2001 Honda, driven a combined total of about 25,000 miles/year.
Bully for you, Scott. Insurance and parking costs more than that here.
Isn't it primarily a function of higher tax rates in Europe? Value of leisure time is tax-free everywhere. US tax rates are low enough so that an hour of work produces enough after-tax income to make it advantageous to work a bit more at the margin. (NOT arguing for higher taxes!) Be interesting to correlate hours worked w/ marginal personal tax rates across countries.
Somehow I manage to be successful AND take vacation. I get 3 weeks vacation plus 7 personal days. I make sure I use all of it, too. And I'm not viewed as a slacker. Every year, my wife and I fly to the Caribbean for a week. Every year. It reinvigorates the soul and allows me to keep being the productive employee my boss desires the rest of the year. I have enough going on with a working spouse and 2 kids. I don't need to grant my boss even MORE of my time than I need to. That's just insane. I work to live, I do not live to work.
Uh, that was speculation, Mr. Galt. Calm down, back away from the keyboard, maybe take a vacation. Chill, dude.
I've worked for a software company for eleven years and get five weeks vacation a year. My first six or seven years, I ate, breathed and slept my job and, no surprise, I advanced rapidly. Then I had an epiphany. No one ever had "Helluva good worker. Never late. Never took vacation time." etched on their tombstone. Now I work out of my house and I realize why I work. To finance the rest of my life.
You know, it'd be interesting to know how kids play into all of this. Do people with kids take more vacation, less or an equal amount?
Couple comments:
I grew up with a small businessman dad and my husband is self employed. To take vacation stops the business and/or means lost $$ so there is a disincentive to take long vacations. What is the ratio of self-employed in the US to Britain, I wonder? I don't know any government or big company types that wouldn't take all of their vacation - they see it as part of their compensation package. I never had problems with my staff taking theirs and they were all go-getters.
Also, an earlier comment about union mentality was on target. I worked for a company with a unionized work force and our (white collar) benefits were driven by their demands. They chose an extra holiday day off rather than dental insurance and once chose a lump sum payment rather than a per hour raise. Sad.
High progessive tax rates which leave less take home income, combined with the prices that those French plumbers and painters demand, probably make it worth your while to fix things yourself. After all how many hours extra will you have to work to pay for the plumber. Where is a good cheap Polish plumber when you need one?
Maybe it's just me, but I have to wonder who these people are who are staying at the same company long enough to earn extended vacation periods? (Five years? TEN? Please. No company you don't own deserves that much of your life. How do you ever expect to get ahead in the world?)
The company I'm at right now actually has a very generous vacation policy...1.5 days of vacation accrue for every month of work. That's just shy of four weeks per year. And when, at other companies, your accrued vacation would expire, these guys buy it back for cash.
If they ever hire another midnight-shift person who can do what I do, I might take more than a day or two at a time of actual vacation. But as long as I have to carry a pager and stay within commuting distance of the office, I might as well take the cash. It's not really a vacation, by my book, if you can't leave town.
Maybe it's just me, but I have to wonder who these people are who are staying at the same company long enough to earn extended vacation periods? (Five years? TEN? Please. No company you don't own deserves that much of your life.
That's a very strange attitude to have. I switch jobs when I'm unhappy with the place I work at. If I'm happy with the job I have, why on Earth would I want to change it? Life is too short to waste it obsessing about whether I'm making every last dollar I could possibly make.
And life is *way* too short to spend time starting my own business, since running my own business isn't something I want to do (particularly since I live in California, which is exceptionally hostile to businesses).
When measuring productivity it is too simple to divide the total number of working hours by the number of employees. Your total amount of output (and the quality of the output)should also be considered.
Typically, in countries where the culture/work ethic requires long working hours, the efficiency of the work performed drops phenomenally !
I can testify to this : I work in the public sector in a West-European country (Belgium) which is known, both for its high productivity as for its high number of vacation days. The reasoning goes that the harder people work, the more vacation/work flexibility they deserve to prevent them from burning up and taking early retirement, taking sick leave,...
I also know a few consultants, they work in firms who are more 'American' in culture. Over there, they perform a lot more working hours but when you talk to the consultants personally it turns out the work ethic is one of standing your ground, not giving in in the face of your colleagues. The one who dares to go home first at the end of the working day is considered a woussy. But the quality of the work performed between 4.30 pm and 9 or 10 pm is nill ! They chat, they 'conference',.... but that's about it.
To me, it's clear, wherever the quality of the output is important, an employer should take care to help the employee in finding the right balance between his personal life and his career.
When the quality of the output is less important the 'American' way with longer hours is probably better suited.
"Europeans are less able to afford labor-saving devices like washing machines, dishwashers, and automobiles, and spend more of their leisure time on manual household labor. "
Huh ? You think Europe is a Third-World country ?
Typically, in countries where the culture/work ethic requires long working hours, the efficiency of the work performed drops phenomenally!
Spartacus, not quite. You can't just look at what your co-workers do and extrapolate macroeconomic data from it. First, labor productivity in the high-productivity European countries isn't that much higher than in the USA -- less than 10% higher in France and Belgium. Second, labor productivity in these countries is higher simply because labor markets are so regulated and rigid that they don't allow the hiring of low-productivity workers. Instead, you have 12% unemployment, low labor participation rates, and consequently, those who do work are, on average, slightly more productive.
http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2989
http://www.isop.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=16974
I have to wonder who these people are who are staying at the same company long enough to earn extended vacation periods?
I've been at the same company for seven years and plan to be here a while longer. I work in publishing, and the reasons for the long tenure are twofold. For one, there's a learning curve that takes you through different projects, and because projects last anywhere from a couple of months to two years, you can still be doing new things after several years on the job. There's a sense of apprenticeship and hierarchy that leads gradually to management. The skills you need to be a good editor are not the same as those you need to be a good manager, but having both is sought-after, and a person new to the industry just doesn't have the base of knowledge or experience to develop and manage projects successfully. I have fairly specialized skills and related fields discourage jumping across fields above entry-level.
As for why I am in the same company, when all of this applies across an industry: there are only four major publishers in this niche, and I live in one of two cities where there is more than one office. The other office here is a satellite with poor prospects.
While lots of people have come and gone, two people who started with me at the same time are still working in my department.
I have an interesting observation as an Oriental who lived in France for several summers.
In the Chinese areas of Paris some stores which close during the required vacation/holiday periods are willing to informally open for select few.
Usually this involves rapping on a closed door and asking for help in Mandarin or Cantonese. The proprietors are "on vacation" but don't go anywhere, so they selectively do a little extra business if they can get away with it.
When I mentioned this to a Frenchwoman of my acquaintance, she was shocked and felt that such people needed to be reported to the authorities.
As they say. Heh...
Heh heh heh, for your enjoyment, a French journalist crapping on Americans for not having 10 weeks of vacation like he does. Enjoy!
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/6/95256/47837
"You know, it'd be interesting to know how kids play into all of this. Do people with kids take more vacation, less or an equal amount?"
I would think that having kids would lead to wanting more vacation time. I get just over six weeks of vacation a year and have been using it all up since my son was born (although I'm almost never away for more than two weeks at a stretch).
I also have unionized staff who get up to 7 weeks a year, plus every second Friday off (gov't jobs). Most use it up, but some need to be reminded every year. Usually the ones who don't take it are more senior staff who have no kids at home and also know most of their work will still be piling up when they are away.
And yes, getting work done when staff have that level of vacation time can be a challenge. We pretty much plan projects on the basis of a 10-month year, with the assumption that everything grinds to a halt over the summer.
Well, I guess Sean can imagine how teachers and school administrators feel about dealing with an education "year" that's only nine months long. Is we learning yet?
It kinda amazes me that we can describe our striving class as a bunch of males, or, in the future, people, who spend 10 hours "on the job", and not think this will affect every part of our family policy.
You remember the family- the institution supposedly responsible for children learning, good work habits, some kind of moral education, etc etc etc. For thirty years I've been hearing about how familial influence was so important that no mere social program could ever overcome it.
Frankly, some people should be forced to take their time off just for the safety of the rest of us. A lot of union people will hear what I'm saying because there are some jobs that aren't that much fun when you work overtime, and others where you need to work overtime to make ends meet. The only guy who really likes the overtime hog is the boss, and not always for the best of reasons.
I guess it is kinda nice that so many people today have jobs where they don't want time off. Like we imagined the future might be.
AT: Yes, one weekend. I have my weekly D&D game and then on Sundays I, I...mostly do housework. Not exactly stimulating. I don't love my job *that* much but at least it's something to do during the day, and most days it's pretty enjoyable.
As to the commenter who wondered why anybody would stay at the same company: Hell, the head of my department has been here for a long time and now his only boss is the CEO. The guy who is in charge one of our divisions was hired in 1979 as a lender, now his only boss is the CEO. There are many paths to success and career progress, the secret is finding the one that works best for you and that you get the most enjoyment out of.
As a new father, I would love to have some more vacation time. Not so much to take whole days off, but rather lots of shorter days to play...err...help with the newest joy in my life, my son.
As such, I am one of the very few people I know where I work that has less than 30days of vacation. Most people up to 2 months of vacaction saved up. Not so much because they can't leave work, but rather they really like work, and don't see the need for a vacation.
depends what you do.
i worked for 2 years and took one week of vacation. but i worked 12-16s 7 days a week (wonderful world of executive level at global consulting firm). more senior people (senior partners) with families and commutes were working same or longer hours and had to travel around the globe for meetings.
it does really depend what you do. if you're single and your firends are in consulting and investment banking, you can never find someone to hang out with and its hard to scrape up the 3000 dollars/ week you need for vacation.
though people doing this are either making massive amounts of money (senior partners in global firm or managing directors in IB making $3M plus annually) or hope to. vacation is overrated if you have prospects of advancement or decent return. if you're some brain dead government worker making no money with seniority being your only method of advancement, then who cares. this explains europe, unions, and governments having vacation, while real people in north america don't.
I think culture and expectations have a lot to do with it -- a lot more than tax rates do. Attitudes towards work and "fulfillment" can be very different.
I lived in Europe for a year -- a long time ago, so take this with a grain of salt. But still, I never met anyone, young or old, who identified with his/her job, or who wanted to. There was very little social mobility. If you were born into the bourgeoisie, then you expected and pursued employment that fit your sense of dignity and paid your level of bills. If you were born into the working class, then you reported to work, did your best to take long lunches, and went on strike a couple of times a year. In either case, you'd have been looked at with disbelief if you said that you had nothing better to do than to spend more time on the job.
In America, many people expect to get ahead, and many people dream of finding fulfiilment on the job. They really, really want to give themselves to a career. (And they expect big things from it too.)
It's probably hard for many hard-charging Americans to believe, but many Europeans think they have better things to do than spend more time at the office: love, family, travel, food and drink -- these are the point of life.
I think it's a little naive to say that we're more "free" where employment is concerned too. Ideas of freedom can vary some from culture to culture. The Euros I knew thought we Americans were anything but free, what with our long hours and work obsession. Their idea of freedom was to be as free as possible from such burdens. The purpose of lots of regulation wasn't to restrict choice, it was to make available what they value more -- such things as long vacations, local foods, etc.
"Why don't Americans take more vacations?"
Because of debts. If you have to give back to the bank a lot of money every month, you have to work night and day. If you have no debt... why work night and day? Or not?
In the average Americans have more debts and so...
I spent two months in Germany and observed that they worked shorter hours and had less stuff. That was fine with them, though. I found it a little frustrating to not be able to go to the store after 6 pm and ended up doing some of my grocery shopping at the gas station (not being a grocery store, it could be open late).
The European houses I saw were often smaller and had smaller appliances. German refrigerators are pathetic. Cars are tiny, though all new (mandated by law).
Europeans appear to have chosen to work less and be a little poorer but have more leisure time. Nothing wrong with that. But it will ultimately lead to Europe falling behind the US in terms of economic activity. Nothing wrong with that, either, if that's what they prefer.
Kate, employees at banks have to take two weeks continuous vacation because that's THE LAW, not because of individual banks' policy.
Whether you have time to take vacation depends entirely on the job you have. I am self-employed now, but even whein I worked for a firm, I did not feel I could take more than a week off and still serve my clients properly. But when I was off, I didn't receive any phone calls either, although I always made sure that my secretary knew how to reach me, just in case. And my wife can't take off more than a week at a time either, so what we do is take small pieces, such as Friday afternoon and Monday in order to ski for an entire weekend, or take off 4 days coordinated with a holiday so we only miss 4 days of work, etc. We spread it around as much as we can. We've both lost vacation days due to carryover rules, and we are trying hard not to have that happen again.
Maybe it's just me, but I have to wonder who these people are who are staying at the same company long enough to earn extended vacation periods? (Five years? TEN? Please. No company you don't own deserves that much of your life. How do you ever expect to get ahead in the world?)
Oh man...anyone who doesn't know how to kill a week apart from work must be short on hobbies.
Find some friends who are willing to coordinate vacation time and then kill time together on a random road trip for a few days. Or buy a nice bicycle and take up long-distance riding (your heart will thank you, I might add). Take up gourmet cooking and start practicing a few recipes (you'll need several tries to master the tricks of the trade, so having time on your hands is essential before you begin preparing guest lists). Or build something in line with your needs/interests just for the experience (back-yard barbecue, playcenter for the kids, an audio or home theater component, a scrapbook, whatever). Take up knitting just for the sake of discovering how Great Aunt Martha actually did it. Or failing all else, just head to the local library or Amazon.com and grab a handful of books you have never read before.
Are people really that short on creativity? There's a big, wide world beyond the housework and television set...
Whoops...wrong quote on that post. In response to the quote I misquoted above, my own father has worked at the same place for over thirty years (although ownership/business organization has changed a couple times). He generally enjoys the work and is among the percentage of the population that doesn't like unnecessary change; in fact frequent career changes would be just plain disorienting to him, so he is quite content.
As someone who is similarly wired (but perhaps less extreme), I wish *I* could find something like that, but given the current pace of society, probably never will.
It's my experience that two-career American families with children would gleefully vote European-style enforced vacation on the rest of us, while families with a breadwinner father and a housewife, part-time employed or student mother would want the $$$$. The former group want the five weeks at a shot to make up for the missed family time, while the latter group are usually cutting it much closer financially. Generally speaking, the former group are unwilling to take responsibility for their own choices and want large systemic solutions to the problems they created for themselves, and don't give a flying crap how it affects the rest of us. They'd vote in taxpayer-funded universal daycare, too.
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