I'm perfectly sane and I live in Texas, so really I'm remarkable

I get 2 weeks plus 4 float days. I get another week after 5 years, which I'm 3 years away from. Most of our vacations tend to be the 3 to 4 day long weekenders, which is fine by me. The one problem for me in the UK, was finding coverage to fill my shifts almost every week because almost always someone was either on vacation or sick. Isn't such a problem here.

Define sane

only owns 4 guns?
hasn't killed "many" people?
sleeps with his eyes closed?

Welcome to the US.

I was speaking to a friend a couple of weeks ago and moaning about this. He was slightly affronted that I'd bring this up saying that Americans have always lived like this and if we wanted a European lifestyle then you had to go live there.

I casually pointed out that he's got terrible heart problems, which do quite a number of my other friends, all caused by stress. He stopped and agreed, that Americans are working themselves to an early grave.

His is the prevalent attitude though. They're working themselves to death for an organization that will kick their butts out on the street at the slightest hint of an extra $ in their pockets.

I wonder if they think that Europeans are somewhat lazy or something?

The difference between the USA and uk is that in the USA there is a more cuthroat attitude to work. In the UK people tend to stay in one job longer ( a hang-over from union times i believe). In the USA people change jobs more, hence companies will not give more time off than necessary.

In my job we take vacation time as "hours" rather than days or weeks. We get the equivalent of 2 weeks but you can't take them together. If you add in days off you can probably eek it out to one week but it's impossible to plan ahead because of scheduling which is done month by month, and we have to work every third weekend. When I say we have to, I mean we have to unless you're dead. That's probably the only excuse you can have to get the weekend off if you're scheduled to work it. I couldn't stand it as I couldn't plan anything and couldn't travel, so I quit and now work on a Per Diem basis. I earn more and can take time off whenever I want but if I don't work I don't get paid. The US job environment is so cut-throat and obsessive that I don't really feel any less secure than when I worked full-time. You can lose your job in a heartbeat if they so decided, and if you got sick you only have about 5 sick days anyway so if you get really sick you're screwed. I feel scared here and I used to feel so secure in England. If you were sick you took a day off, and if you wanted a holiday you just booked it ahead and that was that. I find this the single worst aspect of living in America, and I'm really glad I'm in a position to be flexible.

I don't know who is right or wrong on this, it's what you're used to and what you grew up with, ergo anything different is considered "odd."

When I worked in Europe for a European company I was glad of the vacation and tended to take a whole week at a time, rather than the days here and there (to stretch a long weekend) that I do in the US. But it's all good, . My employers always have gotten their money's worth from me wherever.

There is one thing that did bother me when I was working in Europe, the folks who took "stress" leave, seemingly because they could, rather than because they needed it. One gal I worked with, basically was just wanting some extra time off so she said she needed stress leave. She complained that her back hurt all the time (which she said the doctors would find hard to pinpoint) and she got her extra time off. Certainly a case of getting over.

Its all about "work/Life" balance. And not taking time off is extremely unhealthy, bad for relationships, leads to disfunctional kids who dont see their parents, causes numerous stress related illnesses (costing everyone $$$ billions), causes on the job errors and basically wrecks lives.

I've never seen the point of working myself into the ground to make someone else rich so I can have a huge mortgage on a big house I never see and a family who dont know who I am.

A friend of mine said something that always stuck with me, nobody on their deathbed ever says, Gee I wished I'd worked more.

Sick days and vacation days are very different issues, I think. I agree with CindyAbs that it drives me nuts when people take sick days off just because they can (i.e., when they are not really sick), especially if it means someone else has to work harder to cover their behind while they are gone. Mind you, if you only have 2 weeks vacation a year I can see how you might need some "sick" days to stay sane (maybe).

Re: vacation mentality and work ethic, I see the difference in my job too (which supposedly is the "easiest in the world" in some people's eyes, i.e., a teacher who gets "months of vacation time"). In reality, I don't take lunch hours (I eat a bagel at the computer), I work most evenings and weekends, am up by 4 or 5 many mornings, and rarely take time off during the school holidays (including Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.). productivity expectations (esp. research-wise) are so high there's no alternative but to work.

When I taught in the UK, my colleagues took morning and afternoon coffee breaks (lasting 30-60 minutes, over in the cafe), long lunch breaks, and often weren't in the office.

Horses for courses, but I'd rather be somewhere in between - working hard enough to have pride in my work, but not so hard I need to plan ahead if I need time to sneeze. I just hope when I get to the UK that my colleagues don't think I'm letting the side down if I don't want to take 2 hrs of breaks during the day.

Aint that that truth.

I'm self employed so no sick days for me but holiday when I want to. OH is a college professor and gets way too much paid holiday. 3 and half weeks just this christmas, another week in Feb, another 2 weeks over easter, and then 3 months over the summer, with another week around Oct, and all the public holidays inbetween....plus a year sabbatical every 5 years....the lucky sod.

Absolutely, this is what worries me. We're thinking about kids, and what myself and the wife want is to actually spend some time with them, and attempt to avoid turning them into permanent DVD watching drones that appear everywhere because the parents have been out working 24/7 and are too tired/busy to spend any time with them. I know this is not just the US, however. My mum has taught playschool for 35 odd years in the UK, and says its proven that speech and reading problems are becoming more prevalent as time goes by - I was quite surprised, this being the age of communication and all.......

Interesting articles those, thanks.