> This is one of those things that makes Europeans' jaws hit the floor.
> They really can't quite believe that there is *no* statutory right to
> vacation time in the US.
Their jaws should really drop when you tell them that many Americans don't even take their two weeks of vacation. Still others take the office with them in the form of cell phones and laptops.
Americans are just crazy.
> Americans, OTOH, are always shocked by how much vacation time
> Europeans get (here in Ireland it's four weeks, and that's not high by
> Euro standards) and usually say something like "how do European
> companies make any money that way?"
A good rejoinder to that would be to ask why employees should have weekends. How can companies make money when workers have off on weekends?
> (BTW, every few months or so when I start getting nostalgic for living
> in the US, this is one of the things I think of to remind me why I
> never want to move back. It might seem trivial, but you really get
> used to your four weeks' holidays.)
Enjoy your vacation time and living outside of the U.S. Everything here is one big strip mall anyway. States and municipalites are even throwing more money at new development projects.
A related issue to this is growing school year for American children. Summer vacation gets shorter every year, which only stresses children out, interferes with their learning (esp. experiential learning) and probably makes them more desperate and violent.
Chuck