Philosophy
I love my job. Especially these two weeks. The kids are in school and I am not. A little quiet time to get stuff done that has piled up over the year. But soon it'll be summer, wonderful summer. I'm extremely lucky that my line of work allows me to share so much of summer vacation with them.
The usual two weeks most people get is absurd. Our lives are generally scheduled by what is best for the boss, not what is best for us; what will generate more profit for someone else, not what will allow us to live the life we realistically could be living. In that fashion, how much is a reasonable amount of down time? Should we, like the French, declare August a de facto month off where the expectation is that businesses will close? How much annual discretionary vacation time would allow us to live fulfilled lives?
UPDATE: Helmut finds a graph that shows vacation days per worker in different countries.
- Do We Need To Get Away?
Vacation is surely a modern construct, but is it a necessity of contemporary life? Do we need vacation time? We call taking the occasional day off a "mental health day" but is this a metaphor or meant to be understood literally? Is getting away from it...
- What's The Difference: Summer Vacation Edition
What's the difference between a trip, a vacation, and a holiday?...
- The Right Or The Good?
I was driving in this morning after dropping off a short person for the last day of school before summer vacation and listening to Jack Johnson's song "Banana Pancakes" and couldn't help thinking of one of TheWife's soapbox issues -- the 40...
- The Great Tomato Riots
It is mid-September. Like so many others I have been drowning in tomatoes for the last four weeks. Large, beautiful, tasty, fresh tomatoes. Yet, I go to our dining hall or any restaurant around and want a tomato on my sandwich, it is the same flat, tasteless...
- Mars Science Laboratory's Flight Director...david Oh
"Life on Mars time for JPL scientist and his family" A JPL scientist's family joins him on his mission to live sol by sol – and discovers a new sort of life around Los Angeles. by Amina Khan August 30st, 2012 Los Angeles Times David Oh's eldest...
Philosophy
The Workers Want Shorter Hours. Fine, Let's Start By Cutting Their Lunch Hour
I love my job. Especially these two weeks. The kids are in school and I am not. A little quiet time to get stuff done that has piled up over the year. But soon it'll be summer, wonderful summer. I'm extremely lucky that my line of work allows me to share so much of summer vacation with them.
The usual two weeks most people get is absurd. Our lives are generally scheduled by what is best for the boss, not what is best for us; what will generate more profit for someone else, not what will allow us to live the life we realistically could be living. In that fashion, how much is a reasonable amount of down time? Should we, like the French, declare August a de facto month off where the expectation is that businesses will close? How much annual discretionary vacation time would allow us to live fulfilled lives?
UPDATE: Helmut finds a graph that shows vacation days per worker in different countries.
- Do We Need To Get Away?
Vacation is surely a modern construct, but is it a necessity of contemporary life? Do we need vacation time? We call taking the occasional day off a "mental health day" but is this a metaphor or meant to be understood literally? Is getting away from it...
- What's The Difference: Summer Vacation Edition
What's the difference between a trip, a vacation, and a holiday?...
- The Right Or The Good?
I was driving in this morning after dropping off a short person for the last day of school before summer vacation and listening to Jack Johnson's song "Banana Pancakes" and couldn't help thinking of one of TheWife's soapbox issues -- the 40...
- The Great Tomato Riots
It is mid-September. Like so many others I have been drowning in tomatoes for the last four weeks. Large, beautiful, tasty, fresh tomatoes. Yet, I go to our dining hall or any restaurant around and want a tomato on my sandwich, it is the same flat, tasteless...
- Mars Science Laboratory's Flight Director...david Oh
"Life on Mars time for JPL scientist and his family" A JPL scientist's family joins him on his mission to live sol by sol – and discovers a new sort of life around Los Angeles. by Amina Khan August 30st, 2012 Los Angeles Times David Oh's eldest...