11 ms·

15-20 more federal holidays

48 points by trevin 3y ago

derelicta 3y ago
Idk how anyone can be functional on the long term without at least 5 or 6 weeks of vacation each year.
- alexk307 3y ago
  I’d wager to say that 95% of Americans do not come close to 5-6 weeks of vacation per year
  - hospitalJail 3y ago
    My industry mandates like 3 weeks off per year. 4th of july week for a summer shutdown. 10 days around Christmas. Throw in another 10 holidays. Add in a minimum 2 weeks vacation. Does that count as 5-6 weeks vacation?
    - alexk307 3y ago
      Sounds like it! Sounds like you’re working for a decent company
- skyyler 3y ago
  In my experience, people that don’t get that amount of vacation time on paper usually make up for it through slacking.
  - november84 3y ago
    Or burnout. I feel like "slacking" is inherently negative.
- kvgr 3y ago
  I sometimes take 4-6 and some years maybe 2. I dont see much difference, only it is harder to go back to work after 4 weeks travelling the world…
  - cube2222 3y ago
    You don't have use it up all at the same time. Multiple shorter vacations (with the other extreme being a 2x extended weekend each month) are also an option. I personally need 25-30 a year, spread out across longer (1 week) and shorter (4-day weekend) vacations (and I do enjoy my work very much). It's hard for me to fathom getting by on just 2 weeks a year - and compressed into a single vacation at that. (Disclaimer - European)
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  I've done 5 weeks off per year and 2 weeks off per year. Basically no change to me. The vacation is over, and it feels like it never happened. Holidays are a bit different because the community/family aspect.
  - brodouevencode 3y ago
    I think family time is key. Vacations have their own level of stress inherently, and holiday time does too but it seems less.
- brodouevencode 3y ago
  I've been doing 1-3 (usually closer to 2) weeks per year since I started my career in 2001. It's possible, but I also enjoy my work.
xeromal 3y ago
I may put my foot in my mouth but is the weekend considered a holiday? You get a 100 days off a year just from that + the 2 weeks or whatever that most professionals get which make up the bulk of hackernews readers. I know in some other countries like the middle east, they operate more like what the writer of this article suggests. They work weekends but they get many many more random holidays.
- celeritascelery 3y ago
  > is the weekend considered a holiday? That was my thought as well. I get ~104 days off a year, not counting other holidays. I honestly feel like that is a pretty good balance. Obviously I want some other days off when I want to do something that takes more then 2 days, but I would rather have those as vacation days then mandated federal holidays.
  - xeromal 3y ago
    Aye, in my experience federal holidays are a catch 22. Everything is closed so you can't do anything and if everything isn't closed then people are working. lol. With holidays, you can go do stuff. That said, I usually do nature things on federal holidays. Went offroading this 4th for instance.
  - basscomm 3y ago
    Maybe it's different for you, but, for nearly everyone I've ever known, most weekends are not true days off. Weekends are where I work on things in my personal life (yard work, home maintenance, etc) that I can't get done any other time because I've sold the majority of my waking hours to my employer. Unless something has gone wrong, I generally don't do any work on holidays.
- asutekku 3y ago
  Weekends are not holidays and should not be considered at such. It's insane for me, a European, that people in the US are really fine with just 2 weeks of holidays. I get 30 days + I can exchange some of my yearly bonus for 2 extra weeks. There's no way I'd change that into a system where most would be ok with way less.
ryandrake 3y ago
Instead of fixed-date holidays, just mandate 15-20 days of paid vacation. Why is this so politically untenable in the USA? Why would voters (besides the relatively few business owners) vote against this?
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  The article basically says people like holidays more than vacation. Maybe its the family/friend aspect, or that everyone is off at the same time.
  - citrin_ru 3y ago
    Plane ticket prices go up around public holidays. When taking a vocation one may choose dates when ticket prices are affordable.
  - engineer_22 3y ago
    If I had a month off in the summer I could find some family and friends to visit :)
  - Swizec 3y ago
    > everyone is off at the same time In Europe it is generally understood that nothing gets done in August. Not much gets done in July. Everyone’s at the nearby vacation spot. As a kid in Slovenia, going to the seaside in Croatia was always fun. Slovenians would completely over-run the coast and you could barely find any locals. Meanwhile on our coast, everyone suddenly spoke German.
    - DiffEq 3y ago
      This European vacation is funded by American workers. If the Europeans had to spend in defense what the Americans give them, they would be forced to work more and give up theirs extended vacations and culture of “summers off”.
      - smogcutter 3y ago
hospitalJail 3y ago
Seems like such a sad existence to be looking forward to holidays. My dad told me not to look forward to weekends because it will make life fly by too fast, and it will make your weekdays miserable. I took it to heart, and maybe its because I found a good career, but I like working. I even like working on side gigs after work. Sure bugs can be frustrating, but so is playing Zelda. I find solving the bugs more rewarding than grinding on BOTW. I imagine people indulge on holidays, drinking and eating unhealthy foods, of course that is fun. The next day when you are dealing with the hangover and now have to diet/be in pain for ~3 days to make up for the excess calories; is less fun.
- fantasticshower 3y ago
  I think this is good advice since many of us spend a large chunk of our lives at work. More generally, just try to be present and experience whatever it is that's happening right now. Always living for the future is a good way to waste a life.
  - hospitalJail 3y ago
    >just try to be present and experience whatever it is that's happening right now I feel so conflicted by this. I was decorating a cake for a birthday and I got 100% in the zone. Like "I became the icing". Probably 30-40 minutes went by and it felt like 5. I'm not sure if I was present, but I did good work and I felt content like nothing else. But I can't say I was present, I almost don't even remember the thing happening.
    - fantasticshower 3y ago
      Perhaps that's because your memory is based on recalling what you were thinking about when you did something? If you "became the icing" then you probably weren't lost in thought, talking to yourself like "I should create a budget, I wonder what my spouse is making for dinner, I need to take out the trash, ..."
- iLoveOncall 3y ago
  Yeah you're right, if I had been working instead of procrastinating I wouldn't have read this awful take and I would feel better.
mrits 3y ago
I would have always preferred to have had less holidays and more vacation.
- dr_petes 3y ago
  I think the benefit to a holiday is that everyone gets it off and that’s maintained at the federal level, whereas more vacation is just a contract between you and your employer. The American work culture also makes it harder for individuals to take work off for a vacation.
  - mrits 3y ago
    I don't see the benefit in that everyone get off. Especially since that is not possible in a lot of cases. If we are making laws perhaps make more around making it illegal to not use x% of your vacation within y days into the next year.
astura 3y ago
Holidays are already tiered - I've never worked anywhere nor know anyone who worked at a non-governmental business who got EVERY federal holiday off. Very few people get Washington's Birthday, Columbus Day, or MLK jr. Day off. I've also noticed that, again, for non-governmental businesses, the more holidays you get off the less vacation time you get.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hollerith 3y ago
I think I'd prefer for (some of) the states in the US to make it illegal to work on Sundays (with the obvious exceptions of medical care and emergency services) like we used to have in the West for many centuries in a row (except this time justify it as the voter's will, not God's will). Also make it illegal to make noise a la mowing the lawn on Sunday like Germany does.
Lapalux 3y ago
As European, it's insane to me that American get so little time off. In my country we get 4 weeks leave mandated by law plus public holidays.
- brodouevencode 3y ago
  The mandate part seems insane to me, an American. If the country wants 42 holidays that's fine - just don't attempt to stop me from getting ahead.
  - Lapalux 3y ago
    This is the attitude that has Americans so stressed, unhappy and wealthy!
    - brodouevencode 3y ago
      Maybe, but not for this HN commenter. I enjoy my work and make good money doing it. I'm certainly not alone. Besides, it's the mandatory part that I find problematic. If I want to open my doors for business no one should stop me for a holiday of all things.
      - muttonhead 3y ago
        I think the mandatory part is companies must provide at least that to employees, work all you want, but the lack of paid time off and sick leave for many US workers isn't a good thing
  - ragazzina 3y ago
    Do you support mandated age limits on workers?
    - brodouevencode 3y ago
      Upper limits - no. If they are fit to do the job I don't care how old they are. Lower limits - I'm not sure. This is no longer the early days of the industrial revolution so we're not throwing people (children in particular) down chimneys to clean them and working conditions are much better, but at the same time they are children with brains that aren't fully formed so their judgement isn't exactly reliable. If they're working in a family business or similar that seems fine to me.
xrayarx 3y ago
Please note that many european countries have between 30 and 50 days paid leave. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
15-20 more holidays for whom? The sort of people who hang out on r/antiwork aren't getting paid time off even for Christmas. They certainly aren't going to get 20 days of paid time off, plus the existing holidays. For them, would it be a solution to mental health, or would it aggravate even more when it makes it more difficult to make rent? That is, supposing their jobs just don't work through anyway. I suppose legislation could mandate the day off work, but this isn't a net win at all... then they tweak their hiring practices so as to avoid paying this. More part-time workers who are schedule off that entire week/month so as to not be paid for the day off either. In extreme cases, just hiring fewer workers still, skeleton crews, throughout the year, such that payroll stays the same, but that those who still retain a job are more overworked for it than when they didn't have these extra holidays. Is that net gain on any of a) paychecks for those still working b) rest for those still working c) total paycheck across the entire workforce? I mean, I think this really does increase time off for some large fraction of the workforce, but not in the way that the OP intends.
- philote 3y ago
  The article specifies paid holidays, so it wouldn't make it more difficult to make rent. But I agree that business will do what they can to avoid that, and hire only part-timers like you said. There could be laws introduced to help counter that though. Edit: oops, the article actually doesn't seem to specify paid or not. I'm also guessing the author is used to working salaried positions and not hourly.
dahwolf 3y ago
I'll escalate things by saying that even the European standard of say 5 weeks is in no way excessive. It still means working 90% of the weeks of the year. You could also look at it from another angle and explore what makes work so miserable. More often than not, it's not the hours, it's the intensity of it. Very high-paced, full of thousands of distractions, limited control over outcomes making it not rewarding, politics, the increased speed of change, etc. Modern work has the potential to burn you up much quicker than in simpler times. As for this last point, I cannot emphasize it enough. A recent study in my country revealed 30% of workers being close to a burnout and the vast majority of actual work disability cases to be burnout related. These dropouts creating even more pressure on the remaining work force. I truly believe we're at or near the peak of what the human mind can endure, even more so if you expect people to ride this out until the age of 70. This world is too complicated and too fast.
- maxerickson 3y ago
  I'll take being a bit bored or frazzled over being physically broken, which was historically the consequence of most work, at least once agriculture started to be a thing.
0xbadcafebee 3y ago
It's amazing how batshit crazy blogs like this pop up to the top of HN so frequently. Imagine the people who are so deluded as to believe that more vacation days is all it takes to cure mental illness. Or that vacation days would offset a culture of overworking, underpaying, underbenefits, underrepresentation, etc. Your shitty work life is still waiting for you when you get back. The bills aren't getting paid any faster. You're still on the bottom rung. But you can sure sit around your house longer worrying about things.
youreincorrect 3y ago
I want to know what's so special about July 19th that it made this list. Probably not this: > 2014 – Gunmen in Egypt's western desert province of New Valley Governorate attack a military checkpoint, killing at least 21 soldiers. Egypt reportedly declares a state of emergency on its border with Sudan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_19#1901%E2%80%93present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_19#1901%E2%80%93present Edit: For real though, this is kind of a strange article once it starts comparing 2019 and after. > A recent gallup poll noticed a slight downturn in satisfaction with Americans’ personal life during the last 20 years. > [graph showing a tick down in this poll on satisfaction from somewhere around mid-60s to ~50 from 2019 to 2020] Gee, I wonder what happened from 2019 to 2020 that caused a dramatic shift in Americans' satisfaction with personal life. Hmm. Let me think... > Notably, the amount of leisure is one area that people say could be be improved upon. Changed from 42 up to 43 from 2019 to 2023. Personal health went down from 54 to 41, family life from 76 to 66, community as a place to live from 61 to 51. I don't know why the article presents this data at all because it doesn't support focusing on leisure. The dramatic tick down is quite clearly people pissed off or affected by COVID-19 and government's response to it (both impacted people negatively). Given that data, leisure seems like a non-sequitur. Leisure definitely is important and has been consistently poor regardless of COVID-19, so why present this particular data? Just talk about leisure. I'll add that one thing I think about leisure in the US is that without longer vacations, our leisure time is used in a worse way as well. A lot of peoples' leisure is filled with consuming television. It's like the junk food of leisure. Heck, if you're watching TV shows where characters are frequently angry and yelling at each other or committing murder, I'm going to guess that might actually have a more negative impact on the viewer's mental health. To each their own of course, but I find that when I listen to sad or angry music, it makes me sad or angry. It's like the Bill Burr bit on his dog's temper (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnjGyOQ7FcU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnjGyOQ7FcU). Not suggesting we need to regulate how people use their leisure, I just think this is probably another piece of the puzzle when discussing Americans and our dissatisfaction with our lives in terms of leisure.
- brodouevencode 3y ago
  June 19. Or Juneteenth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth
brodouevencode 3y ago
Some things the author didn't consider: * In the US, there's no mandatory federal holidays for states and private companies. * This doesn't include essential employees, who typically get floating holidays in lieu of federal holidays (usually used at a later time) * Are the differences in happiness actually caused by holiday time - or are there other factors (and what are they) that account for other countries having seemingly higher happiness levels * Is this happiness or contentment we're talking about - there is a huge difference * My understanding was that the high and late middle ages the RCC did whatever it could to placate many of the lower classes because of the pressures brought on by the Ottoman and Eastern Orthodoxies
Aunche 3y ago
I'm noticing that an increasing number of people are taking advantage people's general lack of interest in history as a means ideologically rewrite it. Just because some nobles and bishops said that peasants had it easy doesn't mean that they actually had it easy. Anyone who has actually tried homesteading or even garden knows that the this lifestyle isn't leisurely even with the wonders of modern technology. This isn't even considering all the chores they had to do by hand: washing clothes, making the soap used to wash clothes, rendering the fat used to make the soap, making the lye used for soap, chopping the firewood used to make the lye, and carrying water that you require for all these other chores. This was what peasants did with their "leisure". It was until the Victorian era when the modern concept of leisure

48 points by trevin 3y ago

derelicta 3y ago

Idk how anyone can be functional on the long term without at least 5 or 6 weeks of vacation each year.

alexk307 3y ago
I’d wager to say that 95% of Americans do not come close to 5-6 weeks of vacation per year
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  My industry mandates like 3 weeks off per year. 4th of july week for a summer shutdown. 10 days around Christmas. Throw in another 10 holidays. Add in a minimum 2 weeks vacation. Does that count as 5-6 weeks vacation?
  - alexk307 3y ago
    Sounds like it! Sounds like you’re working for a decent company
skyyler 3y ago
In my experience, people that don’t get that amount of vacation time on paper usually make up for it through slacking.
- november84 3y ago
  Or burnout. I feel like "slacking" is inherently negative.
kvgr 3y ago
I sometimes take 4-6 and some years maybe 2. I dont see much difference, only it is harder to go back to work after 4 weeks travelling the world…
- cube2222 3y ago
  You don't have use it up all at the same time. Multiple shorter vacations (with the other extreme being a 2x extended weekend each month) are also an option. I personally need 25-30 a year, spread out across longer (1 week) and shorter (4-day weekend) vacations (and I do enjoy my work very much). It's hard for me to fathom getting by on just 2 weeks a year - and compressed into a single vacation at that. (Disclaimer - European)
hospitalJail 3y ago
I've done 5 weeks off per year and 2 weeks off per year. Basically no change to me. The vacation is over, and it feels like it never happened. Holidays are a bit different because the community/family aspect.
- brodouevencode 3y ago
  I think family time is key. Vacations have their own level of stress inherently, and holiday time does too but it seems less.
brodouevencode 3y ago
I've been doing 1-3 (usually closer to 2) weeks per year since I started my career in 2001. It's possible, but I also enjoy my work.

xeromal 3y ago

I may put my foot in my mouth but is the weekend considered a holiday? You get a 100 days off a year just from that + the 2 weeks or whatever that most professionals get which make up the bulk of hackernews readers. I know in some other countries like the middle east, they operate more like what the writer of this article suggests. They work weekends but they get many many more random holidays.

celeritascelery 3y ago
> is the weekend considered a holiday? That was my thought as well. I get ~104 days off a year, not counting other holidays. I honestly feel like that is a pretty good balance. Obviously I want some other days off when I want to do something that takes more then 2 days, but I would rather have those as vacation days then mandated federal holidays.
- xeromal 3y ago
  Aye, in my experience federal holidays are a catch 22. Everything is closed so you can't do anything and if everything isn't closed then people are working. lol. With holidays, you can go do stuff. That said, I usually do nature things on federal holidays. Went offroading this 4th for instance.
- basscomm 3y ago
  Maybe it's different for you, but, for nearly everyone I've ever known, most weekends are not true days off. Weekends are where I work on things in my personal life (yard work, home maintenance, etc) that I can't get done any other time because I've sold the majority of my waking hours to my employer. Unless something has gone wrong, I generally don't do any work on holidays.
asutekku 3y ago
Weekends are not holidays and should not be considered at such. It's insane for me, a European, that people in the US are really fine with just 2 weeks of holidays. I get 30 days + I can exchange some of my yearly bonus for 2 extra weeks. There's no way I'd change that into a system where most would be ok with way less.

ryandrake 3y ago

Instead of fixed-date holidays, just mandate 15-20 days of paid vacation. Why is this so politically untenable in the USA? Why would voters (besides the relatively few business owners) vote against this?

hospitalJail 3y ago
The article basically says people like holidays more than vacation. Maybe its the family/friend aspect, or that everyone is off at the same time.
- citrin_ru 3y ago
  Plane ticket prices go up around public holidays. When taking a vocation one may choose dates when ticket prices are affordable.
- engineer_22 3y ago
  If I had a month off in the summer I could find some family and friends to visit :)
- Swizec 3y ago
  > everyone is off at the same time In Europe it is generally understood that nothing gets done in August. Not much gets done in July. Everyone’s at the nearby vacation spot. As a kid in Slovenia, going to the seaside in Croatia was always fun. Slovenians would completely over-run the coast and you could barely find any locals. Meanwhile on our coast, everyone suddenly spoke German.
  - DiffEq 3y ago
    This European vacation is funded by American workers. If the Europeans had to spend in defense what the Americans give them, they would be forced to work more and give up theirs extended vacations and culture of “summers off”.
    - smogcutter 3y ago

hospitalJail 3y ago

Seems like such a sad existence to be looking forward to holidays. My dad told me not to look forward to weekends because it will make life fly by too fast, and it will make your weekdays miserable. I took it to heart, and maybe its because I found a good career, but I like working. I even like working on side gigs after work. Sure bugs can be frustrating, but so is playing Zelda. I find solving the bugs more rewarding than grinding on BOTW. I imagine people indulge on holidays, drinking and eating unhealthy foods, of course that is fun. The next day when you are dealing with the hangover and now have to diet/be in pain for ~3 days to make up for the excess calories; is less fun.

fantasticshower 3y ago
I think this is good advice since many of us spend a large chunk of our lives at work. More generally, just try to be present and experience whatever it is that's happening right now. Always living for the future is a good way to waste a life.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  >just try to be present and experience whatever it is that's happening right now I feel so conflicted by this. I was decorating a cake for a birthday and I got 100% in the zone. Like "I became the icing". Probably 30-40 minutes went by and it felt like 5. I'm not sure if I was present, but I did good work and I felt content like nothing else. But I can't say I was present, I almost don't even remember the thing happening.
  - fantasticshower 3y ago
    Perhaps that's because your memory is based on recalling what you were thinking about when you did something? If you "became the icing" then you probably weren't lost in thought, talking to yourself like "I should create a budget, I wonder what my spouse is making for dinner, I need to take out the trash, ..."
iLoveOncall 3y ago
Yeah you're right, if I had been working instead of procrastinating I wouldn't have read this awful take and I would feel better.

mrits 3y ago

I would have always preferred to have had less holidays and more vacation.

dr_petes 3y ago
I think the benefit to a holiday is that everyone gets it off and that’s maintained at the federal level, whereas more vacation is just a contract between you and your employer. The American work culture also makes it harder for individuals to take work off for a vacation.
- mrits 3y ago
  I don't see the benefit in that everyone get off. Especially since that is not possible in a lot of cases. If we are making laws perhaps make more around making it illegal to not use x% of your vacation within y days into the next year.

astura 3y ago

Holidays are already tiered - I've never worked anywhere nor know anyone who worked at a non-governmental business who got EVERY federal holiday off. Very few people get Washington's Birthday, Columbus Day, or MLK jr. Day off. I've also noticed that, again, for non-governmental businesses, the more holidays you get off the less vacation time you get.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

hollerith 3y ago

I think I'd prefer for (some of) the states in the US to make it illegal to work on Sundays (with the obvious exceptions of medical care and emergency services) like we used to have in the West for many centuries in a row (except this time justify it as the voter's will, not God's will). Also make it illegal to make noise a la mowing the lawn on Sunday like Germany does.

Lapalux 3y ago

As European, it's insane to me that American get so little time off. In my country we get 4 weeks leave mandated by law plus public holidays.

brodouevencode 3y ago
The mandate part seems insane to me, an American. If the country wants 42 holidays that's fine - just don't attempt to stop me from getting ahead.
- Lapalux 3y ago
  This is the attitude that has Americans so stressed, unhappy and wealthy!
  - brodouevencode 3y ago
    Maybe, but not for this HN commenter. I enjoy my work and make good money doing it. I'm certainly not alone. Besides, it's the mandatory part that I find problematic. If I want to open my doors for business no one should stop me for a holiday of all things.
    - muttonhead 3y ago
      I think the mandatory part is companies must provide at least that to employees, work all you want, but the lack of paid time off and sick leave for many US workers isn't a good thing
- ragazzina 3y ago
  Do you support mandated age limits on workers?
  - brodouevencode 3y ago
    Upper limits - no. If they are fit to do the job I don't care how old they are. Lower limits - I'm not sure. This is no longer the early days of the industrial revolution so we're not throwing people (children in particular) down chimneys to clean them and working conditions are much better, but at the same time they are children with brains that aren't fully formed so their judgement isn't exactly reliable. If they're working in a family business or similar that seems fine to me.

xrayarx 3y ago

Please note that many european countries have between 30 and 50 days paid leave. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

15-20 more holidays for whom? The sort of people who hang out on r/antiwork aren't getting paid time off even for Christmas. They certainly aren't going to get 20 days of paid time off, plus the existing holidays. For them, would it be a solution to mental health, or would it aggravate even more when it makes it more difficult to make rent? That is, supposing their jobs just don't work through anyway. I suppose legislation could mandate the day off work, but this isn't a net win at all... then they tweak their hiring practices so as to avoid paying this. More part-time workers who are schedule off that entire week/month so as to not be paid for the day off either. In extreme cases, just hiring fewer workers still, skeleton crews, throughout the year, such that payroll stays the same, but that those who still retain a job are more overworked for it than when they didn't have these extra holidays. Is that net gain on any of a) paychecks for those still working b) rest for those still working c) total paycheck across the entire workforce? I mean, I think this really does increase time off for some large fraction of the workforce, but not in the way that the OP intends.

philote 3y ago
The article specifies paid holidays, so it wouldn't make it more difficult to make rent. But I agree that business will do what they can to avoid that, and hire only part-timers like you said. There could be laws introduced to help counter that though. Edit: oops, the article actually doesn't seem to specify paid or not. I'm also guessing the author is used to working salaried positions and not hourly.

dahwolf 3y ago

I'll escalate things by saying that even the European standard of say 5 weeks is in no way excessive. It still means working 90% of the weeks of the year. You could also look at it from another angle and explore what makes work so miserable. More often than not, it's not the hours, it's the intensity of it. Very high-paced, full of thousands of distractions, limited control over outcomes making it not rewarding, politics, the increased speed of change, etc. Modern work has the potential to burn you up much quicker than in simpler times. As for this last point, I cannot emphasize it enough. A recent study in my country revealed 30% of workers being close to a burnout and the vast majority of actual work disability cases to be burnout related. These dropouts creating even more pressure on the remaining work force. I truly believe we're at or near the peak of what the human mind can endure, even more so if you expect people to ride this out until the age of 70. This world is too complicated and too fast.

maxerickson 3y ago
I'll take being a bit bored or frazzled over being physically broken, which was historically the consequence of most work, at least once agriculture started to be a thing.

0xbadcafebee 3y ago

It's amazing how batshit crazy blogs like this pop up to the top of HN so frequently. Imagine the people who are so deluded as to believe that more vacation days is all it takes to cure mental illness. Or that vacation days would offset a culture of overworking, underpaying, underbenefits, underrepresentation, etc. Your shitty work life is still waiting for you when you get back. The bills aren't getting paid any faster. You're still on the bottom rung. But you can sure sit around your house longer worrying about things.

youreincorrect 3y ago

I want to know what's so special about July 19th that it made this list. Probably not this: > 2014 – Gunmen in Egypt's western desert province of New Valley Governorate attack a military checkpoint, killing at least 21 soldiers. Egypt reportedly declares a state of emergency on its border with Sudan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_19#1901%E2%80%93present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_19#1901%E2%80%93present Edit: For real though, this is kind of a strange article once it starts comparing 2019 and after. > A recent gallup poll noticed a slight downturn in satisfaction with Americans’ personal life during the last 20 years. > [graph showing a tick down in this poll on satisfaction from somewhere around mid-60s to ~50 from 2019 to 2020] Gee, I wonder what happened from 2019 to 2020 that caused a dramatic shift in Americans' satisfaction with personal life. Hmm. Let me think... > Notably, the amount of leisure is one area that people say could be be improved upon. Changed from 42 up to 43 from 2019 to 2023. Personal health went down from 54 to 41, family life from 76 to 66, community as a place to live from 61 to 51. I don't know why the article presents this data at all because it doesn't support focusing on leisure. The dramatic tick down is quite clearly people pissed off or affected by COVID-19 and government's response to it (both impacted people negatively). Given that data, leisure seems like a non-sequitur. Leisure definitely is important and has been consistently poor regardless of COVID-19, so why present this particular data? Just talk about leisure. I'll add that one thing I think about leisure in the US is that without longer vacations, our leisure time is used in a worse way as well. A lot of peoples' leisure is filled with consuming television. It's like the junk food of leisure. Heck, if you're watching TV shows where characters are frequently angry and yelling at each other or committing murder, I'm going to guess that might actually have a more negative impact on the viewer's mental health. To each their own of course, but I find that when I listen to sad or angry music, it makes me sad or angry. It's like the Bill Burr bit on his dog's temper (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnjGyOQ7FcU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnjGyOQ7FcU). Not suggesting we need to regulate how people use their leisure, I just think this is probably another piece of the puzzle when discussing Americans and our dissatisfaction with our lives in terms of leisure.

brodouevencode 3y ago
June 19. Or Juneteenth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth

brodouevencode 3y ago

Some things the author didn't consider: * In the US, there's no mandatory federal holidays for states and private companies. * This doesn't include essential employees, who typically get floating holidays in lieu of federal holidays (usually used at a later time) * Are the differences in happiness actually caused by holiday time - or are there other factors (and what are they) that account for other countries having seemingly higher happiness levels * Is this happiness or contentment we're talking about - there is a huge difference * My understanding was that the high and late middle ages the RCC did whatever it could to placate many of the lower classes because of the pressures brought on by the Ottoman and Eastern Orthodoxies

Aunche 3y ago

I'm noticing that an increasing number of people are taking advantage people's general lack of interest in history as a means ideologically rewrite it. Just because some nobles and bishops said that peasants had it easy doesn't mean that they actually had it easy. Anyone who has actually tried homesteading or even garden knows that the this lifestyle isn't leisurely even with the wonders of modern technology. This isn't even considering all the chores they had to do by hand: washing clothes, making the soap used to wash clothes, rendering the fat used to make the soap, making the lye used for soap, chopping the firewood used to make the lye, and carrying water that you require for all these other chores. This was what peasants did with their "leisure". It was until the Victorian era when the modern concept of leisure