How do other cultures feel about vacations?

[daniela_r]

I live in a (very) poor country in Asia, have lived there for over 7 years.  In that time, I have NEVER heard of ANYONE, even the "upper class" people I know, traveling out of the country just for vacation or to see a different place.  In fact, I have never heard of anyone traveling to another town just for vacation/traveling's sake, except for day trips or to visit a certain important shrine.  People travel to other towns/countries to get better medical care or they travel to visit family.  That's it.  

[Camelfeet]

I think vacations here are a story of the haves. the have-a-littles, and the have-nots. The haves go o/s, the  have-a-littles do holidays at home and the rest of us just keep on working :)

 

I have a lot of trouble with holiday/vacation threads making me feel sad, which I totally own is my own issue, no-one else's. I would love to be able to take my kids on a holiday :(

 

Its not just wealth level, but location as well.  We can take an entire vacation for the same cost of JUST the flights for some people leaving out of the US/Canada/Australia.  If we were in Canada, it is doubtful that would could pull off more than one international vacation every few years.  We would probably just go camping, take road trips, and visit family.  Right now our vacations are only possible because our family is smallish and we can find roundtrip tickets to interesting countries for less than few hundred dollars a piece.  I understand even this is out of reach for some people, but we aren't the 1% or anything.         

 

My DH works for a French company in the US. He gets 25 paid vacation days a year. This allows us to go to the beach for two weeks in the summer and two weeks at Christmas. He can also work from anywhere, so we tend to take a fall trip and a spring trip, too. He just works some during them.

 

We do this too!  It is really great.  I wish mine would work from home though, but I think he secretly enjoys going into the office... :/ 

 

I would guess that a significant portion of US workers have no paid vacation at all. Do retail and service workers in other countries get paid time off? I worked in high school, college, and a bit after college graduation and never had any paid time off. I bet about half of all workers are hourly, which probably means no paid vacation or sick dats, and for many, no unpaid vacation days either.

 

Yes, they should.  The paid time off in many countries regulated by law and all employees get a mandatory number of paid vacations.  

You will notice the USA stands out in this regard...   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_employment_leave_by_country

[Χά�ων]

Oh, and FTR, hockey tournaments do not count as vacation. <_<

Neither do speed skating meets.

 

But I will admit that when DS played travel hockey and did a tournament over Memorial Day weekend they were good about making sure we had time to explore. Games were in either the morning or the afternoon. But that was a one time thing. One tournament We went early to make it a vacation and made the mistake of going to watch the next age division up play because fires in the area cancelled our plans for the day. He was asked to play up. I agreed not knowing the schedule. Dumb thing to do, but he had fun.

[kiwik]

New Zealand is currently about 10 stat days (but some you only get paid if they are a day you normally work and some are transferred to a week day so there are some weird pay and time in lieu things) and four weeks leave. As far as I know everyone gets them unless they are on a casual contract in which case it is paid with your wages or at the end of your contract as a percentage). I get 5 days sick leave which I think is a the minimum and an extra week holiday pay because my company awards it after 5 years. You don't really have to take the leave but you can't exchange it for cash and companies usually insisting if you get near the maximum they allow you too save (otherwise it becomes a liability on the accounts).

 

It costs quite a lot to go anywhere though - I have only had camping trips and a week at a borrowed holiday house that didn't involve visiting relatives in 45 years. And a lot of people find it very hard to take time off as there is nobody to fill in or regret the break when the come back to total chaos. I use most of my leave to cover my kids getting sick.

[Jean in Newcastle]

In Japan I didn't know anyone who took all of their vacation days - except for ex-pats.  I think that the hours worked a year have decreased in Japan lately so that they aren't working quite as hard as they used to.  There is an actual term for death from overwork in Japan.  Everything shuts down though at New Years and Golden Week when everyone goes back to the family home.  I'm not sure how vacationy that feels though!

[TeacherZee]

 If that company is in a boom cycle, which is our current situation, and a long employee leave would cause a hardship for the company or employee, would they be in compliance w/ German law if the employee did not take all days, but was financially compensated?  

 

They can offer but they can't mandate. If the employee WANTS the time the employe GETS the time. We currently have a shortage of medical staff and some hospitals offer significant monitary insentives for people to go in during the holidays. My sister (a nurse) went in and worked during the summer while she was on maternity leave (roughly 18 months here) and she made by working three days more than she would working a normal week.

 

It is rare here though that people worry about the work that would pile up for a holiday. A holiday is pretty sacrosanct and it is expected that the employer manages the customers expecations as to what can get done during the holiday period. That is changing, and not for the better. :glare:

 

I would guess that a significant portion of US workers have no paid vacation at all. Do retail and service workers in other countries get paid time off? I worked in high school, college, and a bit after college graduation and never had any paid time off. I bet about half of all workers are hourly, which probably means no paid vacation or sick dats, and for many, no unpaid vacation days either.

 

Retail and service workers do get time off. They also get paid a living wage. In fact retail workers have a fairly good wages. An adult with 3+ years in retail makes approximately $20. A 16 year old makes about $11. This is the base pay. They then get paid extra for working weekends, public holidays and evenings.

 

In Sweden we don't have sick days as you do in the US. We don't get paid for the first day of any sick period and after that we get paid at 80% of our base pay. After 14 days the state pays your sickleave again at 80% of your pay but it caps out at about $100 per day. Most people have an insurance through their union to make up the difference. There is a cap to the amount of sick days you can have. After that you have to apply to a job that is suited to your changed circumstances (unless for example you are dying from cancer or waiting for a hart transplant or something like that).

 

Most retail workers can afford a week in the sun every so often.

[Pawz4me]

We're lucky that DH's company is very generous with PTO and doing their best to allow employees to schedule time off when they want it, and with at least trying to not contact him while on vacation except in real emergencies  I think he has around 35 or 40 days of PTO.  He's one of their top IT people, so sometimes getting emergency calls can't be helped.  One time we were on vacation and we lost an entire morning because he was dealing with an emergency at work.  The company gave him an extra PTO day to make up for it.  Since we were only at the beach, a few hours' drive from home and somewhere we go frequently, it wasn't a big deal and we really didn't even feel they needed to give him the extra day (but he took it, of course).  We're going on vacation soon and he'll have to be on call one day during that time, because pretty much all the IT people are going to be gone at the same time.  They allow that as long as someone agrees to be on call.  It's no big deal when you know the company is generous.

 

FWIW, when I quit work almost 19 years ago I had 30 days of PTO.

 

So I guess both of us kind of break the stereotype of "U.S. workers don't get much time off."

[Melissa in Australia]

pre-homeschooling I worked casual- I got 4 weeks paid leave each year, plus 2 weeks paid sick leave, though you could only take one day without a doctors certificate- Also 3 months paid maternity leave and you could take up to 12 months unpaid maternity leave. For me I took my paid leave during school holidays so I could look after the kids- I never went anywhere on a holiday at all. I still don't get to go on holidays :-(

[Laura Corin]

 If that company is in a boom cycle, which is our current situation, and a long employee leave would cause a hardship for the company or employee, would they be in compliance w/ German law if the employee did not take all days, but was financially compensated?  

 

It would be very unusual, in my experience in the UK, for employee leave to be cancelled.  We are in the middle of a boom in my company (my office sold double last month what our monthly average was last year, and the volume is not decreasing this month). We are all under pressure, particularly one employee.  He has two weeks of holiday coming up in July, and there's no talk of his cancelling.  And honestly I think that's right: with this amount of pressure, he is starting to make mistakes.  It won't benefit the company long term to keep him working.  So yes, we need to say to customers - I'm sorry, the lead time will be longer than we originally said.  We are completely snowed under with the economic upturn.  We will get to you as soon as we can.

 

I'm employed part time but Husband has been unemployed and then partially employed for the last three years.  I've not heard of payment in lieu of holidays here, but it may exist - in general, the company wants you to take holidays and return refreshed.  During those three years, we have been to Wales for a week for my sister's wedding, went down to London to stay for free (so we only paid train fares), and went away to the Highlands for a weekend.  We are lucky that we live in a nice part of the world, so it's pretty relaxing just to stay home.

 

 

OP here. :)

 

Re: vacations vs. travel. I was wondering about both, I suppose. If time off work is given, and what people in general do with that time. My husband, for example, gets 3 weeks off, but we usually can't afford to actually take that time down. (If he doesn't take time off he gets both the vacation pay and his regular pay.)  When he does take vacation time, we can't afford to actually go on a vacation, it's mostly just sitting at home.

[*lifeoftheparty*]

Corporate/private sector is rough. Even in the US, government employees tend to have more mandatory time off/federal holidays/sick leave/personal days they can accrue etc. Heck, the entire Senate and Congress takes August off.

 

If a Swiss or German citizen works for an international or private corporation, are they entitled by law to the same vacation packages as those who are government employees?

DH works for Dept. of Defense and he gets.... 23? 24? 25? days of paid vacation a year- something like that. Plus he gets all the holidays off and sick days.

 

We take at least one vacation a year, usually 2 or 3 and he has still managed to have "use or lose" vacation days.

 

In 2 years, he'll accrue more hours of leave per pay period.

 

Vacations are very important to me. If I can't afford the mortgage plus at least one vacation a year, then I can't afford the house- and we have structured our life around that.

[*lifeoftheparty*]

In Japan I didn't know anyone who took all of their vacation days - except for ex-pats. I think that the hours worked a year have decreased in Japan lately so that they aren't working quite as hard as they used to. There is an actual term for death from overwork in Japan. Everything shuts down though at New Years and Golden Week when everyone goes back to the family home. I'm not sure how vacationy that feels though!

I just learned that the other day! It was on that "Happy" documentary- that part was sad.

[LibraryLover]

We've never had vacation time cancelled, and we choose when to take it.  Of course,  we do work around company need. Last two years, it's been hard to use up all vacation time.  I'm hoping at some point we can get back to taking all of it, but it's difficult to complain about being gainfully employed when so many aren't.  That part of the job is travel gives us a chance to explore a bit, so that helps.  Taking long weekends, or 5 days (thinking about those Monday holidays plus weekends ;))  here and there is nice, but it would be lovely to take most of the vacation time in one crack.

[LibraryLover]

Yeah I guess that is 2 separate questions.  vacations and travel

 

Yes. We had 'vacation' between Christmas Eve until after the first of the year, but we didn't go away.

[Laura Corin]

I just checked: for people who work five days a week, the minimum paid holiday (vacation) is 28 days including national holidays in the UK.  You don't have the right to take it whenever you want, and the boss has to give you notice if it needs moving (at least two weeks' notice for a two week holiday).  The company cannot stop you making up that time before the end of the year, however.

 

L

[LibraryLover]

I just checked: for people who work five days a week, the minimum paid holiday (vacation) is 28 days including national holidays in the UK.  You don't have the right to take it whenever you want, and the boss has to give you notice if it needs moving (at least two weeks' notice for a two week holiday).  The company cannot stop you making up that time before the end of the year, however.

 

L

 

I'm going to add up national holidays,  New Year's Day, Christmas Day etc.  When I think about those days off, it feels a little better.  ;)

[Hannah]

In South Africa the statutory requirement is 1 day for every 17 days worked, or 1 hour for every 17 hours worked, not including the 12 public holidays. 

 

In my company full-time (40/week) workers get 30 consecutive days per annum of which you are obliged to take one vacation of 14 consecutive days (so if you take a Friday, weekend and Monday, it counts for 4 days).  Vacations are staggered between employees so that work is covered.

 

People who can afford it will use their vacation time to go to the coast or 'the bush'.  Some will go on overseas vacations.

 

We would only call someone while they are on vacation if there is a real emergency.  I do know of one colleague who had to cut short a vacation in Mauritius, but the company sent him and his family on an upgraded vacation a few weeks later.

[QueenCat]

 

So I guess both of us kind of break the stereotype of "U.S. workers don't get much time off."

 

Most people I know, who work full-time, get a reasonable amount of time off. Typically, five sick days and 15-20 vacation days plus federal holidays. Vacation days are usually dependent on how long one has been with their company. Most of the companies dh has worked for start around 10 days/year for new employees but will negotiate for more when recruiting someone with experience. Dh won't take less than 15-20.

[myfunnybunch]

In Japan I didn't know anyone who took all of their vacation days - except for ex-pats.  I think that the hours worked a year have decreased in Japan lately so that they aren't working quite as hard as they used to.  There is an actual term for death from overwork in Japan.  Everything shuts down though at New Years and Golden Week when everyone goes back to the family home.  I'm not sure how vacationy that feels though!

 

Our Japanese and our Korean students have told us that typically their parents do not take vacation. One Korean student told us that taking a vacation to travel was seen as "not serious." People might take time off if they or a family member were ill, or for the New Year holiday.

 

Cat