Vacations
Home Up on Vacations

 

Many businessmen are not going to agree with me on "vacation" being an issue at all!

Too bad, I consider myself a businessman.  But of a different kind, ... that kind of person who has 20/20 sight, a brain over the shoulders, and a heart in the chest!

Like the Japanese and Koreans, we work really hard, as if "it is no going to be a tomorrow".  Many workers do not accrued vacations at all, and those who do, they enjoy one week on the first year, and two weeks from there after.  For those many who have to switch jobs constantly, they will never see much of a vacation at all.  They really do not know what to spend quality time with their family means.  Some of those who are entitled to take a couple of weeks off, sometimes opt for getting paid extra, and work during those days.  A social calamity of huge proportions.  I know bad habits die hard, despite of being harmful to our health.   Just think of disorders such as smoking, heavy drinking, or obsessive eating.

For me (a person who has grown up in a poor European country during the 1950's and 60's, and yet we had almost a month of vacation from the first year) allowing the workforce not being entitled to vacation time -under whatever excuse- is one of the biggest social crimes that can ever be committed

Most European countries compel employers to offer somewhere from 4 to 8 weeks of paid vacations.

  How they can do it?

It is not as costly as you might think, it is a matter of will!

When people have vacations they do not go underground.  They just rest and keep on living.  And living they do.  They go to the countryside to spend time with relatives reinforcing their bonding, they go to resorts and put money into the tourism industry.  They slack back and enjoy their passions, being it writing a book, listening to music, taking the children to parks, ...People come back to work -a month or two later- refreshed and relaxed.  They will live longer as well, and will have better health and less visits to the doctor.

Do we save a lot in America by being stingy on vacations?  If you look only to the tip of the iceberg it is quite obvious that there is a tangible cost to corporations when people are entitled to long vacations. No need to lie about it.  We all know that!   However, by avoiding vacations the society will be creating many intangible social costs that you will not obviously see.  Here is where you need to use your gray matter.  It is the part of the iceberg that is hidden below the water, but this part is a lot bigger than the one over waterWhen you look at international statistics, and compare countries, then you realize that America is not Utopia, by far.  Teenagers are left on their own, and we have the highest rate of teenager's pregnancies and abortions in the Western world.  Lacking ample time to spend with friends and develop solid bonding, many other teenagers in America opt for quick ways to get high, and high they get!  Can you put a cost to drug abuse, abused children, drunken-driving victims, social costs of broken marriages (with plenty of overworked spouses we sport the highest rate of divorces in the Western world), ... the list is endless!

Can I be so wrong that this is not a national problem at all? 

Could it be that all this need for vacations is just the wrong perception by a foreign-born American, who might not have the best attitude toward work?

Now -I ask you- 

Could it be that you are so immersed in business affairs that you do not see the needs of your family, or the social needs of your employees?

Satisfying the "Employee's social needs" means to you: a day of partying -and boozing- at the office?

Don't you think that if people could have more time to spend with their friends -and relatives- in a relaxing atmosphere, there would be greater bonding among those families, and within the members of a family?

Can you measure the social benefits of doing that?  And even if you can not measure the benefits, would you agree -at least- that there has to be a lot of social benefits coming from it?

Don't you think that many marriages that end in divorce could have been saved if the spouses had more time to spend together, in a resort, or in the good company of their dearest family members?  Instead of both arriving home every day tired, exhausted, and that would be the way for "secula-seculorum" (as we used to say in Latin).

Definitely we have a lack of leadership in this great country of us.   Elections are tight, every Politician needs all the votes they can get, and can not afford to antagonized any major voting block.

Listen!  Go to vote, it is your duty!  But, you owe it to yourself not to vote for those candidates who are hidden in the closet!. , Please, vote only for those candidates who have come out clear, and have published their views for all you to see If you know nothing about a candidate,  do me a favor,  do not vote for him/her !!

Of course, you do not have to give them your vote if you do not agree with them.  But even if you do not agree 100% with a candidate, give him/her credit for having the guts to spell his/her positions.

Today, any candidate who cares to be honest with his constituents can have a website (or any other mean of advertising) where he can make public his positions on issues.  If he does not do that, and instead is "playing it safe" by not saying much, or being ambivalent, PLEASE, DO NOT WASTE YOUR VOTE TO THAT MEDIOCRE !   We need leaders.  We already have plenty of political chameleons, who change color as the need appears.

Would you like to vacation in Europe or Asia, ... traveling there by car?

For more on that, visit the "Bering Tunnel" page (<-clicking the link).  You will see why I ask you to do that!

When clicking a button takes you to my other political website ("progress of campaign" at  www.Xuna.com  , please remember to come back to www.Gr8St8.com  by clicking the "page back" button of your browser. Thanks!
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