The last paid holiday

[darkemeralds]

Today is the last paid holiday of my career.

Though it's true that Americans don't take much time off compared to, say, Europeans, I'm still very cognizant of the generous plan my public sector place of employment has given me all these years; how many days they've paid me not to be at work.

From the very outset, when I was a just a wee Word Processing Clerk I (anyone remember those?), they gave me ten days of vacation, twelve of sick leave, and three personal days per year.

The vacation-day count has gone up along with the workload, so that when I turn in my badge next week, they're going to pay me for all the vacation I haven't actually managed to take for the last several years. That drop in the retirement bucket will make an audible splash, I can tell you.

As to sick leave...well, I learned an important lesson in my early days. A woman I worked with was singled out for praise because she had never taken a single sick day in, I forget, something like three years. Her reward? A free day off. It was obvious to me that she could have skipped the praise and had twelve paid days off in each of those years.

(Also, praising someone for the "virtue" of naturally good health is, at the very least, annoying.)

In short, I've never been afraid to "call in well" when I needed a mental health day. I'm pretty sure that's why a) I never climbed higher in the organization and b) the benefits of retiring at the first possible moment outweigh the big pay cut I'm about to take.

Besides, they don't buy back your unused sick leave. I'd've been dumb not to use it.

Back to work tomorrow for a few more days of toil in the fields of the System.

Comments

[writerscramp]

As one of those Europeans, the concept of a sick day allocation is pretty baffling. We call in sick when we're sick (with documentation from doctor if it's longer than a couple of days) and get paid by either the employer or, if it's longer term, the state. As a government employee, abrinsky received full pay for his 3 months off pre/post back surgery last year.

In the US, we have FMLA (Family & Medical Leave Act), which means that in a workplace with more than 50 employees (i.e., doesn't apply in smaller workplaces, which is most of them) a worker can take up to 3 months of unpaid leave for a qualifying family or medical issue (maternity leave, adoption, medical problem, or care of a sick relative) without losing their job.

That's about one notch above Scrooge on the Miserly Treatment of Workers Scale, yet American employers get the vapors at the very notion of FMLA. The idea of paying people for that time, even if indirectly via the state, would bring on the full wailing and gnashing of teeth. You never saw a more hysteria-prone bunch than the American business sector.

[lamentables]

Wow, in the UK you get 6 weeks maternity pay at 90% of your average salary plus up to 33 weeks at a statutory minimum. Employers are refunded all of the statutory maternity pay, and smaller businesses get a bit extra to compensate for some of the other associated costs.

Statutory maternity leave is up to 52 weeks. Minimum is 2 weeks, 4 if you work in a factory.

And the US response to anything like this, and socialised health care in particular, is beyond my comprehension.

[darkemeralds]

It's really beyond mine, too. And even as I stand here, firm in my progressive beliefs and my convictions about how all work and no play make me a dull person, I can feel the pressure of the culture inside me. (Is culture inside one? I guess it is...) It's chanting all the mantras of American exceptionalism, Calvinist morality, and general outrage at all things European. Work is necessary. More is better. You don't deserve. They don't deserve. Bootstraps. You can do better. Try harder. Change yourself. Art and refinement are for sissies. Lazy. Free rider. Introversion is a character flaw.

The book Quiet by Susan Cain was provocative in suggesting that the American corporate culture of today was created largely by Harvard Business School's stated standard since the 1950s of admitting only extroverts. We're the most extroverted population in the world--apparently by a wide margin--and creating a whole cadre of ultra-powerful business leaders without regard to introvert-type values probably made sense to those people. It resulted, Cain suggests, in the incredible arrogance that caused the crash of 2008.

It's certainly a sensational claim, and subject to all kinds of argument, but it feels right to me and gave me a surprising degree of the "ah-ha!" relief that comes from at least having the puzzle pieces slot into place, however unsatisfactory the resulting picture is.

[lamentables]

Again, that's an interesting insight. The whole American exceptionalism thing is, needless to say, beyond me too. Some aspects of it, as I've seen it reported/analysed, I find truly astounding.

I'm enjoying this conversation--hope you don't mind!

[darkemeralds]

In The World Until Yesterday, Jared Diamond puts forth a fascinating idea about the Polynesian and Micronesian tendency to extreme obesity in the face of the modern diet. He points out that only the most naturally fat-retaining individuals were likely to have survived the privation of the long voyage to these tiny islands. The resulting population of the island is highly selected, therefore, for low metabolism and high fat creation and retention. Introduce sugar, and bam!

If you accept that introversion and extraversion are evolved characteristics, heritable and genetic (which there's at least some evidence for), you could make a case that the United States is a kind of Polynesia for extraversion: coming here would have tended to be a choice made by extroverts (Explore! conquer! evade gaming debts! get land! say fuck you to the Church! Whatever!) So we wind up with a population--and therefore a whole culture--heavily weighted towards extraversion, with all the good and bad that that entails.

A great deal of the self-improvement/self-help mania in this country is, essentially, aimed at showing introverts how to be extraverts. I've been delighted to see so much discussion in the last couple of years that gives introversion its due. A quick glance at online articles on the subject, however, shows a discouraging number of "you're not really an introvert" headlines, and "here's how to fix that," and "introversion isn't a real thing" and "you probably don't know what you're talking about."

Sigh.

[darkemeralds]

As a side note: here too, we're expected to get a doctor's note if we're out for more than two or three days. So many people (in other jobs--not mine) have no healthcare coverage, though, that the cost of getting a doctor's note may be more than they can bear. And so many jobs that offer no health insurance also offer little or no paid sick time in the first place. So (if I were in that situation) I miss two days' pay, and must also find however much the clinic will charge to look at me and issue a note.

Naturally, I'm going to drag my ass in to work if I'm even half-alive, and spread my sickness far and wide. Seriously, one of the main reasons people balk at using mass transit in this country is that it is used by sick workers who can't afford cars or time off, and hence city buses are germ-aganzas in the winter months. (And I'll admit that I've had fewer colds since I started bike commuting.)

OMG Don't get me started. Whoops. Too late.