I watched NBC Nightly news an hour and half ago and after thinking about it, silently stewing about the story I feel compelled GASP to write a diary about it. In short apparently it's our own damn fault that we are workaholics and don't take time off. WTF?
The story title is " Americans leave vacation days unused" on the front page of this link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
Watch it and seethe like I did.
Granted there are folks in the world out there like those portrayed in the story who love their jobs and are true workaholics by choice. But to claim this is the reason why the Great American Summer Vacation is disappearing is disingenuous at best and downright cruel to those of us who know better.
Vacation is vanishing because leave accrual is shrinking as companies cut back and as workers are forced to job hop and continually be that new employee who has the bottom rung of benefits.
The second half the the program lectured about how beneficial vacations are and why can't Americans take more vacations like the Europeans. HELLOOOO, we want to but can't!
Me? I get two weeks vacation time in my job -- my old job (17 years at it) came with five weeks Paid Time Off (i.e. one pool of leave for both vacation and sick leave). The culture in my office is such that nobody takes more than a long weekend -- it's rare that anyone takes a full week. Hell one woman got married and had a three day honeymoon!!!!
I bucked the culture and took a full week this week but instead of a true vacation I'm painting my deck and other household fixups -- I don't have enough leave to do both.
So commiserate with me, offer suggestions for a better future or torment me with how good you have it.