web1_111386620-0d25ec7e9f0d44599402bb76cf0d00c4.jpg

Truck slams into crowd of revelers in Nice; at least 60 dead

web1_Protest.jpg

Letter to the Editor: Pursue civil solutions to nation’s racial tensions

<p>If your idea of a vacation is watching an iPhone app&#8217;s live-stream of the sun setting along the beach, stand in line.</p><p>Or, actually, sit behind a desk.</p><p>Last year, American workers let 658 million hours&#8217; worth of vacation time go unused. Only 42 percent of those who had vacation days used them all, according to Project: Time Off, a Washington, D.C.-based campaign whose mission is to &#8220;shift culture so that using personal time off is not considered frivolous.&#8221;</p><p>It was the first time since the project began keeping count of people&#8217;s vacation habits that the majority of workers didn&#8217;t use all their vacation time.</p><p>We&#8217;ve become more and more of a no-vacation nation every year since the start of the new millennium.</p><p>Put some of the blame on economics and the pressure to do more with less. It&#8217;s a culture that demands productivity and ensures a constant melting of work and personal life through email, cellphones and instant messaging.</p><p>Project: Time Off calls it &#8220;work martyrdom.&#8221;</p><p>Not all of it comes down to worrying about being seen as a slacker, though. Some who talked to interviewers for the report &#8220;The State of American Vacation&#8221; said they felt the work would just accumulate and make them work much harder to catch up if they took a few days off.</p><p>&#8220;The culture of silence has created a vacuum, and American workers have filled that vacuum with the pressure they put on themselves,&#8221; Project: Time Off senior director Katie Denis said.</p><p>There&#8217;s also the issue that workers in the United States are way behind other nations when it comes to vacation time policies. There is nothing that requires a private company to give any time off &#8211; not even recognized holidays. (Thanks, Federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.) Although most do offer vacation time to stay competitive in the industry, it averages significantly less than Australia&#8217;s 20 paid vacation days and eight paid holidays, and <em>waaaaay</em> less than the 41 days for workers in Sweden and Brazil &#8211; 25 paid vacation days and 16 paid holiday for Sweden, and 30 vacation days and 11 holidays for Brazil.</p><p>The time-off deficit has effects not just on the psyche of the American worker, but on the nation&#8217;s economy. An estimated $223 billion is being lost in travel-related spending because so many people are staying under the fluorescent lights of the office.</p><p>What can be done about it?</p><p>Project: Time Off says just do it.</p><p>&#8220;The single-most important step workers can take is to plan their time off in advance,&#8221; Denis says.</p><p>She suggests planning vacation time early in the year &#8211; even if it&#8217;s just a random selection &#8211; and sticking to it. Let the boss know you&#8217;re going to be gone. </p><p>Then at 5:01 p.m. the day before the magical date arrives, turn off your computer, put your files to the side of the desk, and turn off your smartphone.</p><p>And see that sunset for real.</p><style>
.neFileBlock {
	margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
	margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
	border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
	padding-bottom: 5px;
	padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
	font-size: 85%;
}
</style>
<div class='neFileBlock'>
<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_Sunset.jpg">
<div class="neCaption"></div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_Sunset.jpg</photo0><caption0></caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>

Our Opinion: Vacation days too precious to pass up; take time off