Re: [Not About Game] Just being curious...

[Dave Fancella <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tuesday 07 August 2007 9:36 am, tangyen wrote:
> Sorry, this question should not be asked here,
> but, I can`t help myself from doing so...
>
> How many holidays do you have in your country?

US:  Varies.  "Standard", as in "this is what you expect when you've worked 
somewhere for a couple of years" is some holidays, usually 3 a year plus 
Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Then 1-3 weeks of vacation per year.  Whether or 
not you get paid also varies.  Generally, the more money you make, the more 
likely you are to get paid for holidays.  In states with a significant Jewish 
population, they've worked out systems where they give personal holidays, 
which is some allotment of paid holidays every year and you apply them where 
you want to.  That sort of thing benefits everyone, of course, but it's 
interesting that it came about by Jewish groups lobbying because of the 
favoritism generally played towards Christian holidays which forced Jewish 
workers to work on their holidays and take off on Christian holidays.

If you work for the state or the federal government, you usually get at least 
one paid holiday per month, where Thanksgiving and Christmas are the holidays 
for those months (November and December).  You also get 3-5 weeks of vacation 
per year.  Hours vary, but for regular office work you can expect a maximum 
of 36 hours.  For labor-type work you can expect 45 or more, as needed.  
Government agencies tend to have budgets that they have to spend, or else 
next year their budget is decreased, and they don't mind spending it on their 
employees.

Hours per week varies dramatically, but 40 hours is the point after which you 
get paid overtime.  Some states also require you to earn overtime if you work 
more than 8 hours in a day, but I don't live in such a state.  Most companies 
try to limit overtime, but most employers try to work their employees around 
42 hours a week because employees tend to prefer to be at the point where if 
they're asked to work any longer, they get paid extra.  But I've seen 32-36 
hours as the standard full-time allotment quite a few times.  32 is the point 
where some states have laws that require benefits to be offered for full-time 
work, and is also a common figure for companies to use otherwise to determine 
what makes a person full-time and what doesn't.

That big UPS strike we had a decade ago or so was all about how UPS would work 
their employees 25-29 hours per week so they didn't have to pay benefits and 
hire a bunch of seasonal work instead of letting their regular employees work 
more hours when they needed them the most.  There are other companies that 
still do that sort of thing, even though UPS got bitch-slapped for it.

Personally, I don't usually get any holidays.  But I work for a school now, 
which means I get lots of holidays--but none of them are paid, so they amount 
to forced time off.  And I'm not allowed to work more than 20 hours per week.  
I've also worked for at least one guy who used some loopholes that included 
the small business size to pay me less than federal minimum wage and work me 
60+ hours a week with no overtime.  I worked for another guy who actually 
asked you to work overtime without pay at all, and if you said no he'd 
eventually fire you for some unrelated reason.  He did eventually fire me for 
some unrelated reason.  :)  I'd like to say these guys are exceptions, but I 
can't.  They're not the rule either, but there's a reason I've taken to 
calling it the "Exploitation Market".

Dave

> In Taiwan, people usually work 42 hours per week,
> have the public holidays excluded,
> people only get 7 - 9 days extra, for vacation purpose,
> and I have heard that people in the France,
> usually have 5 weeks extra, that makes me amazed.
>
> TangYen @ TW