Hooray for the British / European Holiday System.

Chalk up another reason why I may never move home again: HOLIDAYS.

In the US there really aren't any holiday laws. By all account you are able, should you wish to sign up for it, to work every single day of your life until you die. There are no laws stating you should get time off. Though, when you do, HR makes a fuss over the fact that you are using it.

Of course I believe that this has eventually lead to the "use it or lose it" policy. In which you, as a person who is made to feel horrible requesting vacation, must take vacation or it will disappear. This sort of rule came into effect after people, realizing that they would be subject to guilting if they took vacation, horded hours (which is money technically owed to you). Then, when they left the company the company would have to cough up months of vacation never taken. I recall a professor at my former school was owed a years pay on top of his retirement when he left. I had never thought I had seen a man so happy he messed with the system.

Fact is, on holiday Europe has it right. People need time off. People need to be able to go places, or go nowhere. In short, people need to live. In the US it's all about work. Work, and apparently, accumulating debt. Here I have never been so happy to join in Friday pub sessions and realize that I could plan long weekends driving/busing/walking around England and exploring because I could, no guilt needed.

My brother will be making his first trip to Europe in June, and I can take time off to wheel him about. In the US, having been on the job less than six months I would've had to beg for a long weekend. It's so great I can't even describe it. I think it should be mandatory everywhere. While now I'm happily on a government sanctioned holiday (4 days! Woo!) I know that in a short while I'll have about two weeks where I can watch my brother be surprised and shocked and awed and everything with the UK.

And that is just wonderful by me. :)