This won’t turn out well
US workers, employers test ‘unlimited vacation’
Unlimited vacation policies, which have so far been adopted by only a handful of US businesses, have been embraced by both workers and their employers, who say the flexibility increases profitability.
At Ryan, a tax services firm of 1,600 employees, the majority of workers have not formally declared their hours since 2008, and no one keeps track of time off.
It’s an exception to the norm in the United States, where most people work 40 hours a week and paid leave is not regulated by law.
On average, Americans receive two weeks of paid vacation per year, according to a study from the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Steve Thompson — a director at Ryan’s Washington office — says he often begins his summer weekends at mid-day on Fridays to avoid traffic on his way to the beach.
The 32-year-old and the two people on his team generally are physically in the office from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm — so-called “core hours” — but are otherwise free to organize their work weeks.
Thompson — whose job entails helping businesses reduce their property taxes, earning Ryan a percentage of the savings — says he sometimes leaves at lunchtime to do errands or work out.
“If I’m feeling particularly stressed and I don’t have a meeting, I can go to the gym, work out some of the stress and then come back to work,” he told AFP.
He estimated that in practice, his two team members still limited their “real” vacation to two consecutive weeks last year.
I am a student at a technical school with an random selection of average Americans of every age, race and social class. Out of 30 students in my class, two couldn’t show up more than a couple days a week (and ended up dropping out of the program). Another four missed at least two days a week. Six more missed at least one day a week. And yet another half-dozen either showed up late or left early most days of the week.
Doing the math, that is 18 out of 30 students who cannot be bothered to stick with a 30 hour “work week” of a course that is training them for a moderately high income career.
And this is something that they are paying for, either via working while in school or through student loans at a 6% interest rate.
As an aside, the instructors are recording attendance and these records do get reflected in their grades. The instructors also remember who shows up on time and regularly and the students who cannot do this do not get the better job referrals (which from these two legends in the business, actually mean something).
