30-Jun-2006
An End To Grumpiness
As Americans (so it’s often said), we sleep too little, eat too much, are highly neurotic, prone to fits of “intermittent explosive behavior” (a new one: used to be called road rage), and we don’t even take enough days off from work. No wonder we’ve gained such a worldwide reputation as overbearing grumps – we’re pooped.
According to the Economic Policy Institute World Almanac Americans take the fewest vacation days of any country in the developed world. Consider Sweden with an average of 32 days, or France, Austria, Germany, and Spain with 30. Belgium, Norway, and the Netherlands clock out between 21 and 25 days a year, and even the allegedly industrious Swiss take off 20. The U.S.? We average 16.
There are consequences to these figures, too, beyond just some arbitrary world standing. While working an average of 1877 hours a year, we have, perforce, much less time to deal with both the normal and abnormal stresses of life. So we eat too much and we drink too much and we watch American Idol on television, and end up cranky as hell.
With that great a commitment to work, as well, we identify with our work, we become our work much more than analysts say is healthy. I don’t know how many times over the years I’ve had employees look up to me for approval as an end-of-year analysis revealed they’d used maybe only half their vacation days in the year. I don’t know how many times, too, I’ve looked to my own superiors for that same approval.
Keep in mind, also, that as more and more families put two adults to work in order to afford the expensive houses, cars, and luxuries that so many have come to view as near-entitlements, “home” becomes less and less the haven from “all that” and more and more just one more chore.
While it would be naïve to think there is any one, simple solution to a conundrum that has evolved over a good many years, there are a few things that might fly without forcing all of us to don our “Revolution Now” T-shirts and hit the barricades.
First, it might be a good idea to have at least a law or two requiring that employers provide a minimum amount of paid leave. To the best of my knowledge, in all states you’re pretty much on your own as far as how generous your employer chooses to be with such time. Typically, a new employee starts out with a week’s vacation, but it may take as long as twenty years to work up to anywhere from two to four weeks of paid leave. That’s full-timers. Part-timers typically get no paid leave.
Secondly, we ought to make the thirty-five hour work week mandatory across the board; eliminate all overtime (hugely addictive, hugely unhealthy); and throw salaried employees out the door at the end of the work day. The demise of labor unions, and the “do the best you can” add-ons to salaried employees as a result of downsizing have made the fifty and sixty hour week far too common in industries across the board.
Finally, let’s have some new (additional) holidays! Paid holidays, of course.
Feel free to add your own, but I’ve come up with five new national holidays, none of which require us to honor some historical figure that half the population might hate while the other half says, “Who?”
First, on the first Monday in August we’ll have Heritage Day. Haul out all your garb, your kooky recipes, your flags, banners, ribbons, your dances and music, and pictures of your relatives going back five generations – and have a good time. Or just sleep late, mow the lawn, and watch TV. Your choice.
Second, we’re going to have four brand new “season” days: Spring Day, Summer Day, Autumn Day, and Winter Day. These holidays will all be on Mondays because we do like that three day weekend when we’re able to have it. I would also urge that, for as much as these four holidays will be mandated by law, absolutely no official celebrations be attached to them: no gift giving, no street department putting up flags, no parades.
Just a day off. Your day. Enjoy it, and stop being so grumpy.
G. K. Wuori © 2006
Photoillustration by the author
