America, Relax

As an immigrant to America I've noticed many cultural, political, social and economic differences between England and America. Now the bottom line is, I chose to live in America and I thoroughly enjoy doing so. However, there are some things America could do to improve the standard of living for the people here. One of the things that stuck me was the American obsession with hard work. Students are forced to attend school at some ungodly hour in the morning. College students often attend classes before 8am which is unheard of in other countries. When it comes to the work place I am constantly amazed by a reluctance to take time off when sick and at the incredibly short vacation times offered by most companies.

My Christmas break was from Christmas Eve until Tuesday 27th. Given that Christmas fell on a weekend this year I got a grand total of three days off work. When I used to live in England everyone I knew finished work on Christmas Eve and did not return to work until January 3rd. In fact the first job I got in England gave me four weeks paid vacation per year. My father got six weeks paid vacation by the time he retired. Every employer in England is forced to give their staff three times their usual work week off in paid vacation. But most do better.

If you look at countries like France it is not unheard of for staff to have eight week paid vacation per year.

So I guess my point here is that America needs to learn to chill out and take more time off work without feeling guilty. If you're sick you should be able to stay home with full pay. If you work hard all year you should get at least a week's paid vacation off at Christmas. Maybe the protestors whining about companies using the term 'holidays' should be more concerned about people being able to take time off to send with their families.