Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for August 20, 2013

How about the months between New Year’s and Christmas?

If you lived here in Germany with me, for some reason it seems the Autobahn is full of autos from France at this time of year…. every year. And it is true… they drive like NUTS!!!

The Europeans look at Americans as crazy with the little time off we get from work. Many only get 2 weeks, which is too little for the amount of stress is associated with it..

Why don’t we just skip July and August all together most years?

The French name for August is août, pronounced “oo”. That shows how lazy they are.

My theory: children should go to school year-round, adults should gets summers off. Kids get bored – they have no credit cards or cars. On the other hand, WE know what to do with free time. Life is too short to work as hard as we do.

Actually, you should say Europeans – it’s not just France that shuts down / or slows down. l’ve lived in Belgium and Hungary – same goes there.

Looong siesta?

In Australia we combine the French August and the American xmas-new year period. The pre-xmas craziness rises to an awful crescendo for xmas eve, then everything shuts down until early February.

Europeans in general take August off, not only in France. The first two weeks of August are so quiet it is quite enjoyable and relaxing in the back streets, hidden from the tourist crowd. While French cars clog German Autobahns a few millions foreign cars tear down French motorways to enjoy the best time of the year in France. Which is why the tourist industry in Europe is the only one not taking August off.

I need to move to Europe. But if it’s took hot to work then isn’t it too hot to play?

Our economy is also failing despite the lack of vacation time.

I once read that one year when several of Germany’s 37 national holidays fell on weekends ther was a noticable rise in GDP.

My dad’s company not only gives just 2 weeks, they get told when it will be, the week between X-mas and New Year’s and the week of 4th of July, oh and they might get a day or 2 before x-mas off too, but they have to work 10 hour days leading up to it to make up the time. Then they get 4 national holidays MLK jr., Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving (Black Friday is a day off, but no pay) They used to get their birthday after they’d been with the company 15 or more years but they stopped that when the company was around 35 years old because that was too many people by that point.

“A few years ago, I needed a machine tool part from a swiss manufacturer and I called them around the first of august and the nice lady who answered the phone said: “there is no one here, call back in september” and hung up. And they wonder why their economy is failing……….” The Swiss economy, and most of Northern Europe, are the envy of the world for profitability and productivity. There are other reasons Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain were a threat to the viability of the Euro and the entire European Community. The biggest problems were illegal immigration from outside Europe and an unsustainable housing bubble.JusSayin

Switzerland is not part of the EU, not saddled with Greece, Spain, etc, and doing quite well for itself.

Many industries in the US shut down the first week or 2 weeks of July. Traditionally that is when car factories retooled and the line staff were off, jewelry, fabric sample cards, lighting fixture mfg, etc. (have clients in these fields).

Traditionally in the US professionals took off in August – in “Play it again Sam” Woody Allen jokes about all the Psychiatrists being on vacation because it is August.

I started my first post college job on Veteran’s Day. I also worked all of the February holidays every year. I had 1 week vacation for most of the time I worked both in retail in college and as a professional after college until I went to work for myself, now I get no vacation or holidays as I even have to be available to clients when away. Husband on the other hand had about 2 months of vacation – week in February (schools close then and they follow a semi school schedule), week for Easter/Passover vacation, 4 weeks summer vacation (at first had to be individually scheduled then changed to set 2 weeks for everyone), week at Christmas and a couple of part weeks, as well as lots of holidays.