61–70 of 424 posts
Years back when I was working for an American employer, filing a leave seemed like taboo. I didn't understand it back then but when my wife got hospitalized, I filed for an emergency leave of course, my boss sent flowers with a note that goes something like this: "Hope your wife gets better yada yada...can you work while you're at the hospital?"
It wasn't always like this in Europe. Extended vacation time was one of the many hard-fought rights won by the socialist/trade-unionist movements of the past century throughout the continent. Not even Thatcher dared attacking that right (she dropped a few national holidays here and there, instead). Things didn't turn out quite the same on the other side of the pond, sadly, and this is the result.
That may be true but here, in Europe (esp. Eastern), many people go years without taking more than few days of vacation. One, you're discouraged to take time off -- you can lose your job if you're not "devoted". Two, you have to work over capacity to support yourself and your family.
Yes, there is always pressure about choosing the right time for the business or public service, but at the end of the day it's a right and if you don't exercise it you're entitled to a lot of extra money -- which is why employers are keen on people actually taking time off.
However, the biggest problem I have is actually taking the time off! I feel like I will miss too much work if I take a long vacation so I just take off a day or two here and there to "relax." And just like the article says I am always available via email on my cell phone and although I don't want to admit it, I am usually available on my computer as well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also please note that this is paid vacation we're talking about. In Sweden, we have five weeks of vacation by law. And, the right to take four of those weeks consecutively .
Indeed. It's not only paid, but I get 112% of my normal salary during vacation because your living expenses increase when you're on holiday.
It wasn't always like this in Europe. Extended vacation time was one of the many hard-fought rights won by the socialist/trade-unionist movements of the past century throughout the continent. Not even Thatcher dared attacking that right (she dropped a few national holidays here and there, instead). Things didn't turn out quite the same on the other side of the pond, sadly, and this is the result.
That may be true but here, in Europe (esp. Eastern), many people go years without taking more than few days of vacation. One, you're discouraged to take time off -- you can lose your job if you're not "devoted". Two, you have to work over capacity to support yourself and your family.
I don't know that this is the case in many European countries, including Eastern Europe (at least the part of it that is in the EU). First of all, in most (all?) EU countries all workers get 4 weeks paid vacation minimum. If you do not use up all of it, your employer can offer you to "carry over" the vacation to the next year. If they do not offer you that option then they are obliged to "force" you to go on vacation after it becomes clear that you will not use up all of your vacation days. Some employers will offer to instead compensate you extra for the vacation days you did not use up - this is legal in some EU countries only.
> Two, you have to work over capacity to support yourself and your family.
I'm sorry to be so blunt, but this just doesn't make a lot of sense, since those mandatory 4 weeks of vacation are paid vacation - i.e. you get paid the same amount you would receive had you been working instead of being on vacation.
Just about the only reason why you could potentially make less money due to vacation is if you regularly do a lot of overtime (which you obviously cannot do while on vacation).
The flip side of this is that we have Summer vacation for schools (unlike the rest of the world) and have institutionalized Spring Break for college students. Sadly we see the idea of vacation as being for the very young or the very old who retire.
Likewise they usually 1 or 2 weeks off at Christmas time, and 1 or 2 at easter time (around your spring break).
I recently travelled to to the UK and France for 16 days and was happy to return home. I had a great time on the trip, so maybe I'm weird for not wanting to be gone longer? If I actually lived in Europe more vacation might be nice because it's so easy/cheap to visit other countries.
Well, that's just sad. You do know that the rest of the world is having problems at finding a job at all, or at least getting paid on regular basis? Cry me a river.
That isn't a constructive comment at all, not to mention untrue: here in Uruguay we have a record low unemployment, for example (and zero unemployment in IT). Whether you'd be willing to work for my wage is another problem, but I do have 20 days' worth of paid vacations.
Want constructive comments - give constructive topics.
One result of this is that businesses chuck human redundancy out the window. Often there's only one person who can do a business critical task, and as they can't really be gone from work for that long, the business gets by. From an business uptime perspective, forced "downtime" of employees through vacation is actually a good way to force the creation of backup systems for business process.
I also recall hearing at some point in time that a lot of financial institutions forced certain people to take time off,as a means to detect embezzling. I'm not sure if that's true or not.