Titus Pullo

Almost as much as I notice some people who feign outrage over state employees' income, but don't pull a hair over countless Wall St. executives each making 100x as much.

Ilikehappyppl

No ones answered my question yet, if Germany and China can do it why can't the US?


I keep hearing taxes are too high, healthcare and other things but then I read this:Employment News, Consumer Tips and Job Advice - Life Inc. | TODAY.com Blogs - US ranks No. 1 in wealth, not in happiness

Then I think about it for a min, its all a bunch of excuses, not to do the right thing....

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Wolfpack

Because the United States is a country where citizens cannot tells other citizens how to conduct their business affairs (although, sadly, that statement is becoming less and less true each passing day).

Nikolai

To be fair, some of the government interference has been necessary. However, I realize not all will agree. Do you personally support these non-safety and non-discrimination government mandates?

Minimum wage
No child labor
Overtime pay
Medical Leave

I'm not going to say paid vacation should be included, because I do think it is not the business of the government to decide it, but I think it's a little naive to think the government hasn't been interfering in business practice for well over a century. And not all of it has been bad.

Of course, many business owners could stand to learn about the benefits of some time off without the stress of losing out on a paycheck. Unfortunately, there's too much noise for that, so we'll just plod along as the world's hardest working country, no matter how inefficient.

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“On a day when they could have had impact players David Terrell or Koren Robinson..they took Georgia defensive tackle Richard Seymour, who had 1 sacks last season in the pass-happy SEC and is too tall to play tackle at 6-6 and too slow to play defensive end. This genius move was followed by trading out of a spot where they could have gotten the last decent receiver in Robert Ferguson and settled for tackle Matt Light, who will not help any time soon.”

DarrylS

I was at a function the other day, with two Southwest Employees... both had worked for other airlines and were part of the turmoil that seems to neverend in that business.

Talked about how they liked SW and both stated how much they love it, they believe that the SW mantra of "employees first" and passengers second reaps tremendous dividends for them and all of the people they work with.

There describe a lot of low cost perks that are built in, but overall they love their jobs..

Sure there is a method to this madness, but experience tells me that my arrangements/changes/flights on SW have been superior to other carriers..

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PatriotsReign

I would have to agree that overall, Southwest is the best airline to fly.

As an aside, I keep wondering when the day will come when all airlines realize that planes should be loaded from back to front. In other words, first-class/frequent flyers should get on last, not first. Talk about arse-backwards!! Of course, that wouldn't work with Southwest's boarding policy.

Jet-Blue is the only airline that boards their passengers from back to front. They should get an award for simple logic.

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Drewski

Titus - Not to take this thread completely OT, but are those really equatable things to compare?

What a private company pays their CEO is really only on them right? We all may agree that CEO of Acme Bank Inc. probably doesn't need to make 100 Mil a year, but if that is what the board of directors for that company deem necessary, isn't that their call/right to make?

Meanwhile state employees are paid by us, the taxpayer. I can look at a CEO and say "hmmm, you probably dont NEED to make 100M a year" but none of my money is going to pay his salary (short of me buying something from that company).

But when a tollbooth worker is pulling down 70k, and a cop is pulling down $80/hour details to sit on the side of rt 1 in Foxboro really, doing nothing, we the taxpayers do have a say (and a gripe if one is so inclined) in that situation.

Toll booth work should cost $7.75/hr (or whatever the state min wage is). And most other states use flag people in lieu of cops for details and I know they aren't making $80/hr.

To me there is a difference between a town/city/state paying crazy rates for services provided and what a private company pays their CEO. Maybe they are one and the same to you, and that is fine. Agree to disagree.

Now I admit the point I am making gets murky when you include bailouts, corps welfare (huge tax breaks) etc. And Ill grant you that. But there is a difference (to me anyway).

D

IllegalContact

the bottom line is that vacation time is a benefit that companies use as part of the entire compensation package.

to sit here and compare to other countrys is not necessarily that valid.

most countires in europe are at a crossroads. their demographics will be a problem. their birthrates will have most countries have more retired people than working people within 30 years. it does not take much of an imagination to see that the situation will be insolvent. I would not want to be a now 30 year old in europe 50 years from now. careers are easy because there are half the children to take care of.

italy requires approx 1.3M employed immigrants per year to keep themselves financially solvent for the longer term.....the situation becomes strange

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/wo...iht-italy.html

germany has its own issues when it comes to immigration

Immigration Debate: Germany Needs More Foreigners - SPIEGEL ONLINE

forget going on vacation, these people need to start having families, and then the importance of working will increase again

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IllegalContact

to add more to the notion that europeans have the right way....in france, back in 2003

France: More than 10,000 dead in record heat wave

to put it crudely and bluntly, the french working people went on vacation and pretty much left their parents in the attic.

I've never seen anything like this in the state, and it gets hotter here

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“ I think good coaches will coach with the personnel they have, and if you only have one (good) linebacker, you’re not going to play a 3–4. ”
—Hank Bullough, who installed one of the first 3–4 defenses with the New England Patriots.

Drewski

Anecdotal Vaca Bene story:

Back in the summer of 2010 I was busy looking for a new job. One of the key inputs for me is and always has been "work-life" balance. I wont even consider jobs with less than 3 weeks vaca (unless of course the salary is that much higher)

That being said I stumbled across a job posting at a tech co up in Cambridge (the name escapes me at this time).

Anyway they had a really interesting vaca policy. Rather than offering a set number of days to all employees, they used what they called a "work matrix" to deem the number of days an employee got off a year.

The way it worked for them was they had a set number of items a given role had to accomplish in a year. Whether you came in at entry level or in a managerial role, they had an algorithm which said "in the first year of [this level of employee] they should accomplish this much. in year 2, this much" and so on.

As a result of this once a given employee reach the algorithms predefined metric, you could take the rest of the year off.

So for instance, if you were a slower, less effective worker, and you finished your goals for the year in 11 months, you would have a months worth of vacation. However if you were a real go getter, and could somehow accomplish all of the goals in say 2 months, well then they would pay you for the remaining 10 months of the year, as vacation.

I found it a very interesting concept on vacation and a concept that I am surprised more cos. dont implement. Not from a take all the time off you want POV, but from a "the better you work, the more time off you can have paid".