Anywhere but here

In our beloved United States of America, the average American worker receives 12 days of vacation on an annual basis. Most of us are allotted 7 days to wheeze, hack, sniffle, puke and play hooky under the guise of sick time. And finally, most of us mostly-honest taxpayers are given 8 paid salute-your-flag, countryman, favorite-bible-character holidays per year.

In Canada, people receive an average of 20 days of vacation. In Japan & Korea, 25 days. In the U.K., 28. Brazil, 34. Germany, 35. France, 37. And people in Italy get an incredible 42 days of vacation per year.

I receive a total of 15 days of personal time off (vacation & sick days) and 11 holidays. I also have a whopping 3 days of bereavement leave should someone I love happen to die and screw up my employer's plans for me.

My question is: Why does our culture say that we are only allowed to spend 80 hours of the work year doing the things that really matter?

Most people don't give a shit about the work that they do. Ask your office neighbor or holler over any cubicle wall. What to most people like about their job?

My expertly administered quiz resulted in the following:

- People like their paycheck, no matter how tiny.
- Some like working with people and enriching the lives of others
- There are those that like researching ways to solve problems and how their job helps them to think about life in a different way.
- Here's a quote, "It gets me away from my wife and kids." (yikes)

The things that matter - family, friends, life outside the cube (and the office) - those are the things that most people really care about - or at least used to care about, before Corporate Dronedom (and/or depression about real life) took over the last viable part of their brains.

Unfortunately, our culture no longer accepts these things as acceptable. Americans have found other ways to compensate. On average, Americans waste 2.09 hours per day at work engaging in non-work activities.

Let's round down and say that we only waste 2 hours a day. That's 8 hours (1 day for you non-math majors) per week we waste playing on the internet, answering personal email, writing/reading blogs, chatting with family/friends on the phone and walking around the office snarling about coworkers behind their backs. Show of hands, how many of you waste more than 2 hours a day? I can almost see you ducking behind your computer screen.

Why are we wasting so much time? Is it an effort to feel connected to something outside of our work? To use that time to communicate with the people and things that are important to us? I know I scroll through world news and send emails during the day. I still don't feel like I have enough time to be an informed, participating member of society.

I can't help but blame our culture and the American work "ethic" here. Our work ethic sucks - probably because we are expected to work pretty much nonstop throughout the year. We are asked to emulate corporate CEO's - work long days and be dedicated, no matter the compensation - whether monetary or personal gratification. There are no siestas, only meetings conducted through lunch on how to increase productivity. Someone died? Sucks to be you - get back to work in 3 days (generous employers give 5) or we won't pay you for your leave.

Will a revolt ever happen? Or will we continue to work more and more hours to produce less and less product until we drive ourselves, and our environment, into complete destruction?