If there’s one thing I envy our European counterparts over it’s the ease with which they travel.
I was discussing this with Miss Monstir earlier today over Skype and mimosas. She was regaling Flower and I with the details of her upcoming trip. A three week journey through a whole mess of countries. In this case they are driving, but at the same time, on the other side of the pond, no one bats an eye when you request a month off. Which is how it should be. Yet here in the US we seem to have an aversion to taking time off. Whether it’s because of a fear that we can’t be replaced, or that we’ll return to a mountain of work. Either that or that we’ll be looked down upon. How dare you use the leave that you’ve been given as one of the many benefits of working for company X!
Personally though I’ve never been all that concerned. Frankly, if a company is going to give me n weeks a year off, then you better be damn well sure I’m going to take n weeks a year off. Frankly, enough studies have shown that employees who take more actual vacations are more productive and less likely to burn out. Yet for some reason we still have this mentality that the best employees will work themselves to oblivion until they can’t anymore or leave for another job that will work them less. I’ve seen both plenty of times already. Yet no one seems to get it…
