Live data from Hacker News

Vacations in the Soviet Union

daily.jstor.org

181–190 of 422 posts

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#181
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad had a, to teenage me, embarrassing habit of asking less-than-full tables at busy restaurants (mostly tables that looked like they'd just been seated, only drinks or maybe appetizers) if they would like some company and conversation. It got us an invitation surprisingly often, skipping a long wait or a walk to another restaurant, and made for some interesting table talk at the same time.

This is something that is somewhat common in Frankfurt, Germany. I got to meet some interesting people this way when I visited a couple of times.

funny that you say that. i just noticed that twice today in a cafe. why frankfurt of all towns? munich makes sense for this to develop because of their biergarten culture with long benches and long tables

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#182
post #7

Happy May Day! Here's a Twitter thread [0] that has excerpts/paraphrases from an old Soviet pamphlet called "How Soviet Workers Spend Their Leisure." (rolled up version [1]) You can find a scanned version of the pamphlet here [2]. There were many of these pamphlets published. One day I will scan them and post them. There was one on Waterways & Transport in the USSR, one about Soviet theater, one about the food indust…

Prolonged periods of time spent without obligation to work for pay is one of the greatest luxuries you can have in this life. People shouldn't have to wait until retirement to enjoy it. Sabbatical, basically, although even sabbatical often comes with obligations for self-improvement serving the company offering it. A lot of discourse on working hours revolves around decreasing the hours worked per week. I would also…

If you don't want to work for a year then just quit your job and then get a new job later. But it's ridiculous and unrealistic to think that an employer should hold your job open for a year. How are they supposed to get work done during that period, hire a temporary employee and then lay them off when you decide to return?

If you want that lifestyle then just become an independent consultant rather than an employee. I know a married couple who does that. They work for a while to save up enough money, then take off and sail their boat around until they run low on money and have to find new consulting gigs.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#183
post #49

Sigh, that's not always easy with many of the people here with "unlimited PTO" without guaranteed minimums. Most of the unlimited clauses are based on manager approval. The base HR justification for unlimited PTO is to not have to pay out unused PTO when they leave. Naturally, it sounds good on face, but leads to less PTO taken due to inherent worries of "how much is too much", lack of manager approval, and the like.…

20 + 10 = one full calendar month (that's 6 business weeks) of work. You're asking for more than six weeks per year where you can just get paid for not working. Sure, there's plenty of holistic value-add to being a well rested, happy employee, but if the difference for your happiness and well-being is somewhere above having six weeks of paid vacation (plus assumed sick days as needed for actual sicknesses) and gettin…

Just looking at the raw numbers from a German PoV, that is in line with our minimum vacation days (4 weeks * 5 workdays/week + 9 to 12 holidays depending on state, if a public holiday falls on a weekend, it is not not "made up later"). So for me that sounds fair and at the lower end, especially if you have negotiation potential. I am stating this to make my bias clear.

I found your reply coming across fairly harsh. I think this is because we might have different interpretations of what PTO is. For me PTO is part of the compensation for doing my work. In essence, I am not getting paid to do nothing. I get paid less raw money for working, in exchange for more flexibility and less time at work. PTO is reducing my average work hours per week, just taken in bigger chunks at once rather than working a little bit less each day. I think you can also express more PTO as an increase in hourly compensation, but of course with additional implications.

Whether the mandated minimums or any amount of PTO are fitting or not is a different discussion. I think having time you can plan yourself is important. Overall, I think we should strive to work to live and not live to work. At what amount of PTO, compensation, work hours and working conditions you draw your personal line is, in my opinion, very subjective and not necessarily related to job dissatisfaction.

P.S. One extreme example for time/money trade-off I have seen, is someone who works 100%, but gets paid 2/3. In exchange he takes an entire year off every 2 years while maintaining his salary during that time. It works out, roughly, to the same hourly wage, but with more flexibility.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#184
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prolonged periods of time spent without obligation to work for pay is one of the greatest luxuries you can have in this life. People shouldn't have to wait until retirement to enjoy it. Sabbatical, basically, although even sabbatical often comes with obligations for self-improvement serving the company offering it. A lot of discourse on working hours revolves around decreasing the hours worked per week. I would also…

Hey if they let people work less because the machines do it, they might figure out we're "dangerously" close to post-scarcity in a lot of fields. Gandhi figured that out a long time ago and talked about it, it's why the only machine he liked was the sewing machine.

The things that people really covet will always be scarce no matter how much machinery we have. There will never be "post-scarcity", it's just a silly concept.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#185

There are a bunch of zoomers out there who un-ironically claim Communism is the ideal way of life. I've worked with some of them. I still can't fathom what's going on in their brains.

I can at least appreciate someone who advocates for non-Marxist or Leninist forms of communism or just socialism in general. But there has been a remarkable rise of young people who now defend Leninist communism!

I think for a lot of people, it's intellectual junk food. A Marxist revolution has a low risk of actually happening in the modern world. And rather than educating yourself on policy and working on advocacy, you get to play in a fantasy world where you don't have to do anything except fight the conspiracy suppressing a natural egalitarian world order.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dystopia is right in your face. VPNs don’t work well and with them turned off there is a ton of stuff you can’t access.

You may be surprised to find out that outside of HN, not many people use Internet freedom as a prime measurement of dystopia. As a techie I am personally also very annoyed at the lack of Internet freedom. But as a Chinese I also recognize that there are many more aspects in life and society that are more important than Internet freedom, and that China scores pretty high at (especially in historic context).

Like the right to protest?

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#187
post #97

>"The Soviet Union's approach to paid time off (PTO) was unique, as it not only provided workers with time off but also determined how they spent it" Utter bullshit. I was able to travel to every part of USSR (except of course restricted areas and abroad) during my vacation time without any problems. USSR had gobbles of big problems and general lack of freedom but vacations were not part. As a matter of fact I spent…

You are right with your disagreement, because the article starts quite sensational with this phrase and does not make it clear enough how different was USSR in different times. It is a typical mistake that many Western writers and readers make to judge Soviet Union based on Stalinism, NEP or Perestroika. Yet as the story in the article develops, you can find there that there was indeed some freedom about travel in Soviet Union. It is unfortunate that it does not cover all aspects of Soviet tourism and the rich culture around it.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dystopia is right in your face. VPNs don’t work well and with them turned off there is a ton of stuff you can’t access.

You may be surprised to find out that outside of HN, not many people use Internet freedom as a prime measurement of dystopia. As a techie I am personally also very annoyed at the lack of Internet freedom. But as a Chinese I also recognize that there are many more aspects in life and society that are more important than Internet freedom, and that China scores pretty high at (especially in historic context).

When you dismissively say “internet freedom”, what you really mean is “free expression”, “freedom of association”, “right to peaceably assembly”, and “right to petition your government for a redress of grievances”.

Even this photo is still censored: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always, the gap between reality and propaganda is hilarious. Soviet workers and their colonized subjects spent their leisure time filling in for the massive failures of the state to provide anything resembling their promises. Some excerpts from my childhood: * Family outing to the fields to harvest carrots to pickle for the winter. This would be bartered with other families who went to harvest other veggies, so th…

These examples highlight the deficiencies of the Soviet economy, and it's evident that such failures caused considerable suffering among the population. Nevertheless, given more time to engage in activities akin to the first two examples, and separated from the threat of malnourishment, I believe I would experience greater happiness and a stronger connection to both my food and community. Through shared struggle, bar…

Well what's stopping you? How much time do you spend on HN and social media? You can use that time to grow vegetables instead.

Re: Vacations in the Soviet Union

#190
post #79

>It encouraged workers to vacation with groups of relative strangers as opposed to their friends and families. This can actually work out well. I experienced something similar in the US while on vacation. I was traveling with someone from Glenwood Springs, CO to Denver, CO via Amtrak. We went to the dining car for lunch an since there were two of us and space is at a premium, the Amtrak policy was to seat us with one…

Haga has a flagged comment pointing out the purpose of this policy, and I can't figure out why it is flagged, so I'll just quote what the article says:

"It encouraged workers to vacation with groups of relative strangers as opposed to their friends and families. They were all part of a collective and that umbrella united them. In the Soviet Union, after all, the collective—not the family—was the most important social unit."

Yes, the purpose of the policy was to dismantle the commitment to the family and establish commitment to "the collective." This is also why the children were sent elsewhere.

Post reply on HN