Is Bush's, with his 26-day vacation, a role model for fellow workers

September 1, 2001 2:19 PM

Is Bush's, with his 26-day vacation, a role model for fellow workers or do Americans need to accept that "work is life'' and not something from which people need to escape? Are you getting the time-off you deserve, or do you choose to work through your vacations?
posted by dai (23 comments total)

pardon my grammar, should've been "Bush", not "Bush's". it's my first post, so i was rather nervous.
posted by dai at 2:21 PM on September 1, 2001

First post and but one more anti-Bush poster! Just what is needed. But more to the point is the fact that Bush not only gets a nice long vacation but with all the firings and layoffs and down sizings, many Americans will have a much longer vacation that Mr. Bush.
posted by Postroad at 2:29 PM on September 1, 2001

Dai, you are about to be rudely introduced to Metafilter's anti-Bush-post jihad! Go to the park for awhile. Enjoy the day. Here you will only find yourself dismayed, as I predict you are about to be flamed and/or ignored.

Not that I don't agree with where you're going with this.
posted by crasspastor at 2:30 PM on September 1, 2001

Yep! See!
posted by crasspastor at 2:30 PM on September 1, 2001

I don't see how this is an anti-Bush post. The subject seems to be more about vacations- whether they're long enough and whether people use them as a true break from work.
posted by phichens at 2:34 PM on September 1, 2001

crasspastor, my day has already been ruined by germany's 5-1 loss to england :) but thanks for the suggestion, it is a nice day today.

postroad, the fact of the matter is, i don't like politics, and politicians for that matter, no matter what their party platform is. this post is about vacations, the story happened to be about bush's vacation, because well, he's the president, and people are interested in what the president does.
posted by dai at 2:46 PM on September 1, 2001

I have nothing against Mr Bush other than the fact that he is our president.
posted by Postroad at 2:46 PM on September 1, 2001

IMO, this is a post about vacations and not bush. it uses bush's vacation as a talking point.

it's funny, a european friend of mine was complaining to me that he was only getting 25 days vacation this year instead of his normal 30-35 days. i told him i get 10 days and his jaw dropped. i saw an article in wired comparing vacation time allowed all over the world and the US was nearly the worst.

people wonder why americans are so "US-centric." maybe it's b/c of the fact that if i want to go to europe i have 10 fuckin days to do it and then my entire vacation for the year is blown in one single vacation. i think must US citizens who would like to travel abroad don't have the time until they are much older or do it when they are young. if i travel abroad by the time i get over my jet lag i have to fly back. i love the US and there are tons of great vacation spots but i would really like to have the time to go travel to australia or japan or travel all over europe or even to a few countries in europe but i can't. instead we go for mini vacation from wednesday or thursday to sunday and use the weekends as extra days so we actually get a 4 or 5 day vacation and only use 2 or 3 of our vacation days. at least that way we can go on a couple of little vacations throughout the summer. it pisses me off that i can't take a little more time.
posted by suprfli at 2:56 PM on September 1, 2001

Work is part of life, work is not life. Everyone needs to escape once in a while, kick back and relax. Including the President.
posted by tomorama at 3:31 PM on September 1, 2001

The idea that Bush spent 26 days sitting on his ass in Texas is laughable. Hint: This is 2001. The "White House" is wherever the president happens to be at the moment. He doesn't have to be physically located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in order to do his job. The staff follows him everywhere.
posted by aaron at 3:50 PM on September 1, 2001

Many commentators on our currrent work-frenzy have noted that Americans love working because it gives their lives meaning and gives them something to do besides watch television. Bloomberg, the billionaire currently running for mayorship of New York, is quoted in a recent magazine article as saying his perfect day is one in which he is so overbooked that he doesn't have a minute to himself. That says it all, if you ask me. These work crazies are trying to get away from themselves and their own contentless personalities. As for myself, I find my own company quite amusing, and therefore "work" as little as possible. It could be that George Bush enjoys daydreaming, and if so, I say more power to him.
posted by Faze at 3:52 PM on September 1, 2001

Being in academia, I get "vacation" lasting all summer...of course, we never get paid enough to actually =take off= all of summer, but theoretically we could.

I agree with the idea in the article about having a shorter workweek; both my husband and mother have tried the 4-day week, 10 hrs. a day, and they can get so much more done on their 3-day weekends.
posted by meep at 4:15 PM on September 1, 2001

I work for an american company whose benefits include a 6-week sabbatical granted every 4 years, and allows the employee to cash in regular vacation time in order to afford the time off. I've had 2 of them so far and they've been wonderful. I've used them to do things that I've always wanted to do, but have never had the time to accomplish during a normal 1- or 2-week vacation. I was eligible this year and spent several weeks learning how to sail in Spain.

I've also worked in Germany where my company provided 6 weeks of vacation every year and paid me an extra month's salary so I could afford to take it.

My personal feeling is that Americans need to take more time off and corporations should stop making it so difficult for employees to get away from work. Fat chance of this happening during the current economic downturn, I know.
posted by MrBaliHai at 6:06 PM on September 1, 2001

I think that no matter how you slice it, the man on the street has a tough time relating to someone so rich that they can just run away to the ranch for six weeks. I know I do. It's one thing to take a couple of long weekends now and again if you're the chief executive, but a month, be real. This was not the most well crafted way to get in touch with the common man or woman.
posted by shagoth at 8:11 PM on September 1, 2001

Maybe this is why we don't hear people complaining about lazy Americans as much as we used to...
posted by mrbula at 8:58 PM on September 1, 2001

Does our American penchant for over-work contribute to our high use of anti-depressants? I say yes. If we had the time to relax the stress of daily life wouldn't take an increasing toll on our mental health. Lives gobbled up by work are one dimensional and fail to feed the whole person.
posted by NastyChel at 9:34 PM on September 1, 2001

consideration must also be given to the fact that there exists things like overtime or double overtime pay for workers who work during their vacation. i personally know people who, for various reasons, would rather earn the extra pay, than to take the time off. if vacations were mandatory across the board, would that improve the current situation that nastychel mentioned?
posted by dai at 10:13 PM on September 1, 2001

I get 26 paid vacation days + another 10 or so national holidays every year. They make me take the days off. It's the law.

Get out of America.
posted by pracowity at 12:53 AM on September 2, 2001

Our company recently went from an "unlimited" sick days policy (if you're sick, we'd rather you stay home than infect us) to 6 sick days per year. I'm guessing that this was to reduce abuse of the system. However, it seems that now the number of sick days are fixed, people are thinking of them as "emergency vacation days".
That's other people, by the way...
posted by nprigoda at 6:32 AM on September 2, 2001

Does our American penchant for over-work contribute to our high use of anti-depressants?

I would say I am much more depressed when I'm not working than I am when I have a job.

Although vacation time is different from either.
posted by kindall at 9:28 AM on September 2, 2001

Would you trade your 10 days of vacation for 26 days where you have to be on-call 24/7 and have to keep up-to-date on everything that's happening at work with daily meetings?
posted by smackfu at 10:11 AM on September 2, 2001

I'm getting to the end of a week's vacation (made one day long thru the miracle of labor day).

how I wish it were longer. I didn't go anywhere, partially by choice (lots of housework to do), partially by necessity (no money to go on a trip). I'm just getting to the point where I'm really mellow, sleeping at my body's clock instead of "the man's" - midnight to 9am. I actually know who my partner is now, because we can hang out together for days on end. I finally got some time to do some serious writing, to sort thru old bills, to work on side projects.

and the day after tomorrow it's back to the grind.

I gotta agree w/suprfli - if we had the time to go to other parts of the world, we americans might understand it a little better. I remember during my freshman year of college, I took the train home for xmas break, and there was a woman from new zealand sitting next to me who said she took her whole vacation every year (about a month or so) to the us, to take the train where-ever. wouldn't that be nice?
posted by epersonae at 11:10 AM on September 2, 2001

It is hilarious how the media portrayed Bush's 26 days as vacation. So, the President tried telecommuting for four weeks...did anyone really think that as President he could just phone it in?
posted by john_lustig at 9:00 AM on September 3, 2001