Why do Americans have to work so hard at taking it easy?
Back in Finland from a relaxing yet busy holiday. Many many many thanks to Mr. Hank W. for keeping this blog interesting and active while I was away, from the scores of comments I know that you all thoroughly enjoyed his posts. Beers on me the next time we meet up Mr. Majander!
With usually only 2-3 weeks of vacation per year, Americans do very little relaxation while on holiday, they try to cram as much Disneyworld, rollercoasters, and sightseeing into their vacation as they can - and when they return home they’re so exhausted they need a vacation from their vacation. With usually 5-6 weeks of vacation per year for Finns, there’s more time to take it easy and get much needed rest. Here’s a few little tidbits from a recent Time magazine article entitled, “Just sit back and relax - Why do Americans have to work so hard at taking it easy?“…
- Americans are allotted few vacation days (14 days, on average) compared with other industrialized countries.
- The average American will leave four vacation days on the table this year, which adds up to a whopping 574 million days of untaken vacation, collectively. One of the top reasons is that it’s too much extra work, they have to catch up on their workload upon their return
- Americans spend more money than anyone else in the world on leisure - fully one third of their income - and yet they are simultaneously No. #1 in the world at not taking vacations
- Only 14% of americans will take a vacation two weeks or longer this summer
- American lunch breaks during work average 31 minutes, down 5 minutes from 10 years ago
- The average American office worker “goofs off” for just over two hours a day - and that’s not counting lunches or breaks. (Surfing the internet is the top reason)
I always thought president Bush’s long vacations was one of his redeeming qualities. Hopefully other Americans take after his example.
Comment by N. Siinistö — Mon, Jun 26th, 2006 @ 4:17 pm
I guess taking it easy is akin to a sin in the American mental universe. I wouldn’t personally want to live in the American way, although I can appreciate the efficiency and the other benefits of that philosophy of life.
The main thing wrong with the American way of life is that striving to be maximally productive economically in modern capitalism based on specialization is not psychologically healthy. Humans are not narrow specialists by nature. Humans are natural generalists. In some ways physical laborers are more fortunate than engineers, lawyers, and many other educated professionals in that at least they are not selling their brain-time. Of course, most today’s physical laborers pay a heavy penalty in status loss compared to educated professionals.
Without much time for creative hobbies and socializing, life is dull indeed. I can’t wait for machine intelligence to finally surpass and soar past human intelligence in every possible respect and render all human labor utterly worthless economically.
Comment by Markku — Mon, Jun 26th, 2006 @ 4:52 pm
There is interest comparison in Wikipedia: List of countries of the world sorted by their Gross Domestic Product (PPP) per capita per hour.
1 Norway 39.70
2 Luxembourg 38.49
3 France 38.16
4 United States 35.42
5 Belgium 34.04
6 Ireland 33.94
7 The Netherlands 32.49
8 Austria 32.29
9 Denmark 31.53
10 Germany 31.26
11 Sweden 30.29
12 United Kingdom 28.99
13 Italy 28.38
14 Finland 28.37
15 Canada 27.67
16 Australia 27.57
17 Switzerland 26.54
18 Japan 25.51
19 Iceland 24.05
20 Hong Kong 23.59
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita_per_hour
So it is just a question of work to live or live to work. More holidays, less money and vice versa. I’d bet the most efficient way to work could be only about 6,5 hours per day with no longer than 15 minute lunch break. Any longer than that and the time is spent more and more fixing of all kinds of errors and not actually thinking before action. Surest way to have a really crappy end product or service is to have too tight deadlines set by the marketing department.
Comment by tim73 — Mon, Jun 26th, 2006 @ 6:44 pm
how long did you have to stand there for the ripples to stop, were u standing in that spot before the tide came in?
Comment by spuuddy — Mon, Jun 26th, 2006 @ 9:35 pm
Update the “YELL”.. annoys me.
Comment by PG — Mon, Jun 26th, 2006 @ 9:50 pm
Heh, Phil is jesusing around…
I’m sure, there is an optimum for the vacation length. Everybody needs a certain time to unwind from the job, but after some time, the visiting relatives, the surprise guests at the summer cottage, the grand in-law tour and the compulsory home improvement (which is never accounted, when the household workload distribution between the spouses is considered) begin to wind you up again.
Comment by Antti (the redneck one) — Mon, Jun 26th, 2006 @ 9:50 pm
There is interest comparison in Wikipedia: List of countries of the world sorted by their Gross Domestic Product (PPP) per capita per hour.
Interesting statistics, but its not really a useful way to compare countries for these purposes.GDP/person/hour measures the supply of labour versus the supply of capital. That’s why places like Norway and Luxembourg are top of the list - they have a heck of a lot of capital and a tiny workforce.
Some sort of measurement of job/overtall life satisfaction per country might give a better picture.
-BM
)
(ex-economics student, can you tell?
Comment by Badgermushroom — Tue, Jun 27th, 2006 @ 8:16 am
Jesusing around… heh.
A shout from the shore of Gennesaret: “Yo! Supposed to be the son of God but can’t even swim!”.
Comment by issi — Tue, Jun 27th, 2006 @ 9:38 am
How the hell you expect the Americans spend their time aimlessly driving around when they have gigantic motorhome payments to take care of? Have you ever seen those mother f*****?
Comment by Petteri — Tue, Jun 27th, 2006 @ 10:45 am
I’ve always wondered the Japanese and American way to take your vacation. People feel like they MUST do something special or otherwise they throw their free time away.
It’s much more relaxing just stay home, read a couple of good books, take a nap everytime you want and share a few beers with your friends, without rush or pressure. (and it’s cheap too
Comment by Jaakko — Tue, Jun 27th, 2006 @ 4:22 pm
I’m just reading an interesting book called “The European Dream” by Jeremy Rifkin which attempts to explain some of these fundamental differences between the American and European approaches to life, work and free time.
The author proposes that the American culture is still strongly defined by a cross between its Calvinist forefathers’ view on life (each individual is called upon to constantly improve their lot in life by increasing their productivity) and Enlightment science (efficiency is a rational, technical way to improve productivity). So somewhere along the way, in the mind of the Americans productivity = good moral values.
This is also why Americans are always ‘busy being busy’ or needing to tout just how much, how early, how late, how long, how hard, etc they work. It makes them “better people”, goes the argument.
Thus, it seems that if you take long vacations, you are either lazy (= person of low morals) or not important.
I find the vacation time issue similar to the maternity leave issue - most Americans don’t even realize that in other advanced and industrialized nations, people actually are given time to relax, enjoy life, start a family, etc. And, not being aware it, makes the American standard seem not so bad. You don’t hear a single politician anywhere (save perhaps for California) proposing to lengthen any of these - sad, isn’t it?
Comment by Peanut's Mom — Tue, Jun 27th, 2006 @ 10:07 pm
needing to tout just how much, how early, how late, how long, how hard, etc they work.
That sounds like Finnish farmers.
Is that boook any good? It sounds something I’d like to check out.
Comment by Phil — Tue, Jun 27th, 2006 @ 10:15 pm
Phil, you should definately check the book out, as should some of your regulars. More fuel for your fires as well as some solid, factual and historical background to banter about.
The subtitle and premise of the book:
“How Europe’s Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream”
Comment by Peanut's Mom — Wed, Jun 28th, 2006 @ 2:06 am
Personally, I didn’t like Rifkin’s book. His starts with how much more wonderful Europe is than America. It takes a quarter or more of the book to tell how awful America is before discussing fundamental differences between the two cultures. I was very disappointed. I had heard him interviewed by Diane Rheem on NPR and was very excited about the book.
Comment by Väinämöinen — Thu, Jun 29th, 2006 @ 12:22 pm
I’m only a quarter of the way into the book, but do have to agree with vainamoinen that Rifkin does have a tendency to overstate or glorify some points to make his. Having now experienced life in Europe first hand, I know some of his opinions are overstating the glories of Europe.
However, I still find the sections I have read explaining topics such as the religious baggage carried to America, the different philosophical views on Time and private property to be thought-provoking.
(Diane Rheem rocks)
Comment by Peanut's Mom — Thu, Jun 29th, 2006 @ 7:15 pm
“However, I still find the sections I have read explaining topics such as the religious baggage carried to America, the different philosophical views on Time and private property to be thought-provoking.”
Speaking of religion, Islam is going to be a powerful force in Europe by the end of the century. Both in France and Sweden, abour a half of the immigrant population from the Islamic world observes religion, a much higher percentage than among original Europeans. Christianity has left a cultural legacy in Europe but is otherwise largely dead or dying like an ossified tree.
The proportion of muslims of Americans will be much smaller owing to the fact that immigrants into the US are predominantly latinos. As the weight of Islam in Europe begins to be really felt in the middle of the century, America may perhaps expect tens of millions of secularized nominally Christian immigrants from Europe as a result of increasing Islamic influence on society.
It is the destiny of the Northern Eurasian stock of humanity, the nerdies of them all, to always explore new frontiers and flee from heavily populated habitats where too many other humans are specialists in intra-species competition. In fact, Northern Eurasia itself was populated by our species exactly in that manner: the most exploratory types always followed the retreating glaciers towards the North.
Paradoxically, the nerdiness of Europeans - and earlier that of the Chinese - allowed theirs to become a dominant civilization, but the relatively recent immigration of huge numbers of non-assimilating rapidly growing elements in Western society is replacing Westerners in the West. By the end of this century, Europe will no longer belong to the West. The cycle is about to start over. Perhaps this time The Law of Accelerating Returns will allow humans to transform themselves into something capable of colonizing space soon enough.
Comment by Markku — Fri, Jun 30th, 2006 @ 2:18 pm