Sat, 21 November 2009
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"The average American works 45 hours a week and gets 12 vacation days. The French get 30, Germans get 27, the Dutch get 25 and UK workers get 23."At a recent dinner party, the conversation turned to summer holidays and the French, Dutch, Irish, and Belgian folks around the table discussed their plans to vacation for three-four weeks in Turkey, Southern France and Spain. Heads turned expectantly towards us, the token Americans, to see where we'd be going this summer.
We noted that my husband's job would take him to Germany early in the summer and we'd all travel with him and tack some family sightseeing days onto the beginning and end of the trip, but other than that, we didn't have a holiday planned, though we expected to make some weekend or day trips.
A stunned silence accompanied the diners' blank expressions, so we offered a bit more information. We explained that we tried to avoid the summer tourist crowds and so we'd spent a week in Paris last fall and a week in the UK in April.
Americans, we said, don't normally take long vacations.
As an afterthought I added: "The typical American summer vacation is one week long".
Somewhere at the table, there was a small gasp of disbelief. Only a WEEK?! I tried to clarify the issue further:
"People normally only get about two weeks of vacation a year and they don't take it all at once. Even if you have a lot of vacation days, taking more than a week off is generally frowned upon."
Our French companion snorted. "Why not?"
"Well," my husband explained, "The general thinking is that if the office or business can function without you for two or more weeks, then maybe your job isn't necessary."
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