Are you taking all your vacation? 你會用盡自己的假期嗎？

I love to travel, wish I could do more. In a recent trip to the UK, I met my old friend from high school. It will soon be his 10th year at his company, and he'll get 4 more weeks of vacation, on top of his present 6 weeks. That means he'll be vacationing for 10 weeks next year! I was like "wow, that's just not right, how I wish I worked here too!" Unfortunately, at my previous job, I only had 10 paid vacation days.

In fact, when it comes to vacation time, American workers are far behind their European counterparts. Moreover, we don't even have a government policy that mandates minimum number of paid vacation! Hence vacation is not a privilege, it is a benefit!

A poll by Reuters/Ipsos found that, only 57% Americans take all of their vacation time, compare with the French, 89% using up all of their days! In other countries like Argentina (80%), Hungary (78%), UK and Spain (77%), Saudi Arabia (76%), Germany (75%), Belgium and Turkey (74%), Indonesia (70%).

Well, if you think being in the America is tough, lets look at the Japanese, only 33% use all of their days. Followed by South Africa and Australia (47%), South Korea (53%). Canadians are slightly better than Americans, with 59%. While the Brazilians and Indians each has 59%. full story

苦幹實幹的美國人

研究結果顯示，雖然美國人的有薪年假不多，大約每年有14天左右，但是也只有58%的人會把年假用完。相對的，法國人卻有高達89%會耗盡自己的假期，真的會享受呀。

早前在英國與十多年未見的同學重逢，閒聊之下得知他目前有6星期的假，再過幾個月就要服務滿10年，屆時會再加4星期的假。天呀，明年他就有整整10個星期的假耶，太幸福了吧。想想我之前服務的公司，一年才不過10天假，再加上11天有薪的公共假期，與歐洲的朋友相比，簡直是小巫見大巫了。心酸咧。

可是相對於日本人，美國人好像也不太差啦，因為在日本只有三分之一，即33%的人，會把假期用完。看來真的是一個工作狂國家，沒事就不要往那邊靠了。

很多人即使是放假，卻也還會查閱公司的電子郵件，或者接聽公司的電話，實在是沒有完全的放下去享受假期。可能是大家都認為自己很重要，或者是不想丟掉飯碗吧。然而，如果不是真正的放假充電，那又怎能算是假期呢？你說是嗎。