From 2005 to 2007 I wrote for Tucson Business Edge, a monthly supplement to the late Tucson Citizen. Mostly these were profiles of business owners, but occasionally I was assigned a longer piece. Not all of them need to be preserved here, but this one seems to bring up some interesting issues. It's pretty long because of the OTOH/OTOH journalistic conventions, but if you're underemployed, maybe you've got time to read it.
What if you came home from work on October 24th and took the rest of the year off? Suppose you just unplugged from the office, turned off the cellphone, and spent time with your family until after New Year’s Day. If you did that, you’d be enjoying the same amount of time off every year as the average European worker.
“The Europeans average about six weeks vacation,” says Deborah Figart, a professor at Stockton College in New Jersey. “And in the United States, if you’re on the job long enough – which is typically two to three years – the average is about two weeks.”
In a nutshell,” says Figart, “the Japanese used to be the workaholics of the world, and the data and studies are showing that in the United States, now we are the workaholics of the world. And families are having a very difficult time, trying to balance work and family and all the demands. And folks are cutting their vacations short, and they’re taking their cellphones with them, and they’re working out of their cars. And it’s becoming a nation of workaholics, the United States.”
