Why Americans cannot enjoy holidays

http://www.economist.com/node/16846330

by MikeCapone • 16 years ago

34 35 16 years ago

I remember watching an American explain to a very confused German colleague that Americans couldn't afford to take 6 weeks holiday because their economy was so powerful.

Perplexed German engineers are so cute!

waterlesscloud• 16 years ago

I remember the first time I met an Australian taking a year to wander around the earth. That was a bit of an eye-opener. It wasn't the last one of them I met, though. There seem to be a lot of them.

larsendt• 16 years ago

I wandered around the planet for a year (American). Totally worth every second (and every penny).

prawn• 16 years ago

Australian here. In 03/04, I spent a year going around the world. Hit 20+ countries on multiple continents. Financial obligations aside, I find it sad to meet anyone over 30 who hasn't left their home country at least once. In Australia, we're very isolated, and traveling outside the country is quite expensive. If you're in the UK, for example, I envy you!

robryan• 16 years ago

I think in general though Australians are largely in the same boat with work. The difference though could possibly be that it seems to be getting worse for Americans.

The thing is these days if you choose to live more simply you can easily get by and have a heap of free time. I don't really have it at the moment because I'm combining uni with freelancing/ startup. After I finish uni though I could see myself having plenty of freetime should I choose that route and just live off some freelancing/ startup funding. I have most of the material goods I'm interested in given the low price of electronic goods these days. It's only when you start aspiring big material goods that you get stuck in the trap of needing to work long hours and bring in a small fortune to get by.

tjmc• 16 years ago

Yes, it's a bit of a tradition both here and in New Zealand to travel for a while. I remember when I was backpacking around Europe over 3 months in 1993 meeting a couple of Microsoft employees who explained that they only had 2 weeks to achieve the same goal.

They intended "to visit McDonald's in every country".

I think the key difference between Antipodeans and Americans regarding travel is a very specific meme. A lot of Americans have told me that taking a year off "looks bad" on your resume. That it indicates you don't take your career seriously or you're having some sort of personal crisis.

Here (and in NZ) travel is seen as broadening your horizons and it certainly doesn't count against you with employers. In fact, many see it as an accomplishment - part of a "well rounded" education.

So I'd invite HNer's to consider "hacking" this meme for themselves. I don't think it serves you very well. The vast majority of Aussies and Kiwis who take a year to travel around the world aren't wealthy. They just do it on working visas and save money between travels.

rdtsc4• 16 years ago

Just tell them it's "trickle down economics" and watch their head explode.

Or maybe they'll pat you on the back, and give you hug out of pity...

elbenshira• 16 years ago

I've never understood the "American dream": study hard to get a "good job" (whatever that means) to work hard to save a lot of money for a nice house and a nice family and work even harder for a nice retirement so that at the end of your painful years, you can enjoy the rest of your life in blissful boredom with your aging eyes and ears and enjoy Earth as it should have been enjoyed in those long years that you toiled.

lukifer• 16 years ago

"It's called 'the American dream' because you have to be asleep to believe it." - George Carlin

rdtsc4• 16 years ago

So true. This "American Dream" is basically a bed-time story for the children so they can feel good about being American.

It is also everyone's favorite "rags to riches" story. If you just work hard enough you can be anything you want to be. Judging by the disappearance of the middle class and the enrichment of the very few at the top, it looks like Americans are just terribly lazy. They just simply _choose_ not to work hard enough. No fucking wonder they can't relax during their 3 week vacation. They feel like the should have accomplished a lot more given their 10 hour days + only 3 week vacation but there is still no result. So obviously they haven't worked hard enough, so while they are at the beach with the family, perhaps they should just check their work email or call the office to see how things are going there. If they work _just_ a little harder they, might get that white picket fence, 2 care garage, kids' college fund will be full and maybe, just maybe, the bosses at the end of the year will spare a couple thousand as "generous" reward for the hard work.

All the sarcasm aside. The root of the problem is horrible labor laws in US + laws protecting corporations. Everything is geared to please the corporations not the individuals. No mandated vacations, no mandated 2 week+ termination notices, no public health insurance, inflated college tuition, expensive over-inflated mortgages, while the culture keeps telling us that we can achieve the "American Dream" if we just work hard enough.

Also "American Dream" is one of the greatest propaganda motifs. Any candidate can apply those 2 words to any agenda they want and it will be swallowed hole, no questions asked, because it evokes such strong, warm, fuzzy emotions.

sliverstorm3• 16 years ago

No wonder you don't understand it. You've got it wrong.

The "American Dream" is not white picket fences, 2 and a half children and a dog. It can be, but that is not the only thing it is.

The idea is simple- you can be anything, do anything, achieve anything. You apparently see it manifest most often in the form of the desire to elevate your family for your children- pull your family out of the lower classes and solidly into the middle class so that your children have it easier.

Put succiently; it is the possibility of everything that is impossible in a caste/class system.

(Not that I believe it exists in all it's shining glory etc, but before you criticize it make sure you understand it)

groaner• 16 years ago

The "American Dream" is not white picket fences, 2 and a half children and a dog. It can be, but that is not the only thing it is.

While you are absolutely right, there's no denying that there is intense societal pressure against making anything other than that your "American Dream." Ugh.

Everyone I know seems to think I'm crazy for not chasing after some promotion so that I can buy a bigger house, a better car, find a spouse, etc. I have the freedom to choose otherwise, but not the freedom to not be ridiculed for it.

parbo• 16 years ago

I think it would be easier to be anything you want to be if you have:

* Universal and free healthcare * Free education (all of it)

johnny22• 16 years ago

i don't that view either, but i do understand wanting to have purpose.

So many choices in the world, it's easy to become overloaded and fall back on a path of least resistance. Especially if such a path harkens back to a view of some "golden age"

ccarpenterg• 16 years ago

This sounds more like a "Latin American nightmare".

rdtsc4• 16 years ago

Oh don't worry, the CIA has got that under control ;-)

sliverstorm3• 16 years ago

The thing that always kills vacations for me is, I suspect, directly related to our lack of vacation time.

Vacations must be optimized and maximized, to get the 'most' out of the short time you do have.

As a result of this, you get nothing out of it because you miss the point entirely.

Holidays are great, because nobody is going anywhere and the only concern is that the food is not burned.

johnnyg• 16 years ago

I like maximizing and optimizing my vacation. I definitely want to have an original, self improving experience on my vacation. I think I would last about 2 minutes just laying on a chair.

In all utter seriousness, is there some better way to spend a vacation? Can you describe it?

rdtsc4• 16 years ago

The problem is this. If you only get 3 weeks vacation / year, you usually leave 1 for family holidays (extended xmas, thanksgiving week), another for emergencies and then another 1 week for a traveling vacation with the family. In one week you can't get anywhere too far. You end up spending 2-3 days just traveling if you go half way around the globe. Then you only have 4 days left to actually have a "vacation". It's hard to relax in 3-4 days before having to pack your bags again. So I think people just shove as much stuff as they can into those 4-5 days and they have an "active" vacation -- because then it seems to them like they did more, but that often ends up being just as stressful as working (at least to me).

> is there some better way to spend a vacation?

Another way to do it is to go to a lodge in the mountains for 2 weeks. Hike, relax in a hot tub, read, enjoy some time together with the family, not browsing the web or reading work emails, not rushing anywhere.

Another option is the beach. I have no problem laying on the beach listening to the waves for hours. Just give me the time. Sure I like an "active" vacation -- but I also like to have the options for a relaxing "do nothing" vacation as well. That is what recharges my batteries at least. The typical American vacation time doesn't allow too much for that.

sliverstorm3• 16 years ago

The vacations I enjoy the most typically have:

-A start date

-A end date

-A location/destination

-One or more good friends/family

-A vague idea of what we'd like to do

Any time a vacation is actually planned beyond what flight or road to take and perhaps where to sleep, for me no fun is had at all. You spend all your time stressing trying to meet deadlines and worrying about what comes next, instead of living in the moment, which is what a vacation is all about.

I figure you know your vacation was done right when you wake up the last morning and think, "man, I don't want to leave"

jasonkester2• 16 years ago

That's a good start, but you've got a couple steps there that can cause problems. Here's my list:

- a start date

- a starting location

- a vague idea of what you can do there

As you said, having concrete plans can mess things up, but I find that having even a single date on the calendar is just too much of a constraint. Once you hit the ground, you just don't know how long anything is going to take. If you're due in a specific place at a specific time, you'll find yourself compromising, rushing, and skipping things even if that date is two months away.

Friends are nice to have along, but you need to plan your trip with the assumption that they won't come. Because they wont. And if you're waiting to book your flight until they decide on a good excuse, you could end up not going either.

yason• 16 years ago

The only way to maximize and optimize your vacation is to maximize its length. In other words, to have lots more of it.

In Finland, I have five weeks of vacation a year and I usually take at least another five weeks of unpaid vacation. Public holidays don't count, of course, so I'll be home at Christmas and many other holidays regardless.

What I think is the point of a vacation is to re-learn to do nothing and not being bothered by your usual responsibilities. Everything seems to be about doing, doing, and doing these days.

Yet, people who must always be doing something have this very impenetrable zing around them that at least I do find it very difficult to even connect with them until they settle down for a while, reconnect with themselves and start being for a while.

If you ask me, that ain't the way we're born to live our lives. In order to have enough time at all, one must be able to afford to waste plenty of it. Otherwise your life goes by without you ever noticing.

ryanwanger• 16 years ago

I'll bet that Americans have to travel further to see family than most other countries. The bigger the country and more mobile the population, the more days are lost to family visits...making true vacation days even more scarce than they might appear.

callahad2• 16 years ago

Ooh, I hadn't thought to quantify that, but as an only child living almost 2000 km from my family, it takes me around 7 hours of transit (3 hours on a flight, 2.5 in a car, an hour or so for airport security, intermodal transitions, and other miscellany). Essentially a full working day devoted to travel each way. To make it worth while, I need to stay at my destination for at least two subsequent days.

Thus, this year, I have to budget ~4 vacation days around Christmas, and ~3 around Thanksgiving. If I had the standard American budget of 10 working days of vacation, I would be left with but 24 hours of paid time off for the entire rest of the year.

InfinityX0• 16 years ago

In Daniel Kahneman's talk "The riddle of experience vs memory", he details how vacations are most important for the memories they create. When we go on a three week vacation to the Bahamas, when we look back, it was just a vacation to the Bahamas - the duration didn't matter. For our happiness' sake, we would have been better off splitting that vacation in thirds, to three different locales, because our vacations, when recited, dissolve the time spent at each location.

http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_exper...

geden• 16 years ago

Nice. I experienced that first hand earlier this month.

During a two week holiday I spent 2 days in a city hotel, then the rest of the week in a campsite and then another week camping in another country.

On the penultimate day I remarked to my wife that I felt like I'd been away for 2 months. Now I know why. Thank you.

gst• 16 years ago

So all these US companies have this 10 (or something) days of paid vacation. Is it usually possible to get longer (but unpaid) vactions, or is this not an option?

adolph2• 16 years ago

Custom and economics make unpaid vacations an unattractive option. Most human resource systems do have "unpaid leave" on the books for when workers have some necessity to take more leave than currently accrued. Under some circumstances a worker could go into a negative leave amount that will be filled in by leave earned later.

One of the issues for a company is that leave is accounted for like an unpaid bill. If employees have a large amount of leave built up it can look like the company has an out-of-balance amount of liabilities.

How is leave accounted for in non-US companies?

StuffMaster• 16 years ago

It's an option, but entirely dependent on who you work for. I would imagine this would be easy for creative type jobs and not so much for business type jobs.

jasonkester2• 16 years ago

One of the nice things about America is that you have the freedom to rearrange your priorities however you want. Personally, I value travel enough to have put myself in a position to do as much of it as I like.

The cool part is that as geeks, this is more true for us than for anybody else.

Everybody here is capable of making 2-20x the standard American salary, and most of us are capable of doing that remotely. That means that anybody here can, if so inclined, take between 6 and 10 months off to travel every year and still bring in the same salary (or more) than your typical office worker.

Better still, we can do our thing remotely for the most part, so there's nothing to stop anybody here from setting up shop in the South of France and writing code with a view of the Mediterranean and a bottle of wine close at hand.

So yeah, if you want you can live the lifestyle described in the article. But as IT folk, it's nice to know we don't have to.

More here:

http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vaca...

Why Americans cannot enjoy holidays

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