If family time is so important why does vacation time have to be paid?

[RB TexLa]

Shouldn't the time with family be worth giving up just two weeks of pay? Some family "values," huh?

[Live and Learn]

1. Cause the family still has to eat? nt

[MadHound]

2. Well, for all those people living paycheck to paycheck,

Giving up those two weeks of paid vacation would devastate them financially. What, don't you think low income folks deserve to have family time?

Geez, I hope you never go to Europe, where FOUR weeks of paid vacation time is the norm, a much more enlightened proposition in my opinion.

Paid vacation is an extra, a benefit as they call it. It is part of your compensation package. Sadly, a paid vacation is becoming an increasingly rare benefit, leaving all those families who are living paycheck to paycheck with the devil's choice, spend time with family and go further down the financial toilet, or work, work, work and have no time with family. Some family values there, eh?

[NutmegYankee]

3. Huh? Bills and living expenses don't just stop. nt

[bowens43]

4. wow. what can you say to this?

you don't want paid vacation ,then don't take one

[Major Hogwash]

5. You haven't met my family!!

I get paid big bucks to hang out with them once a year.
And it's still not enough!!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Popcorn?

Pass the butter, will ya?

[SmileyRose]

16. Nevermind the popcorn

It's a rerun

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. But it should be just as hot

[nadinbrzezinski]

98. Told you it would be entertaining

[Brickbat]

7. Just to bug you.

[seabeyond]

23. +1. nt

[salin]

8. Assume much?

all vacations are for family time (never to take care of personal life - my job requires 10-11 hours a day - no time to deal with things like the heater going out at the house. A "vacation" day allows a day to stay home to wait for the repair person, oversee that the "fix" actually fixes the problem... etc.)

or the assumption that the only people who take vacation days have families.

or perhaps assuming that "benefits" don't have a purpose - such as retaining employees.

Are you suggesting that organizations should not offer vacation days? Then why offer any days off at all. If rest is important, shouldn't it be worth it to pay for any Saturday or Sunday off?

[Cirque du So-What]

9. You're just DYING for someone to ask if YOU can afford to take off for two weeks without pay, right?

Well, far be it from me to leave your ego unassuaged.

[Comrade_McKenzie]

10. What about people living paycheck to paycheck? I guess they shouldn't get a vacation. nt

[Cirque du So-What]

11. It's not his job to worry about those people, yunno

[eShirl]

53. Those people don't count! sheesh

[Zalatix]

111. Damned over-privileged Americans.

Every day of paid vacation that an American gets means more suffering for someone in China. Only those damned John Birchers would want paid vacations!

No, really, that would be CLASSIC RB TexLA in a nutshell.

[Fumesucker]

13. Don't go changing..

We love you just the way you are.

[fishwax]

14. paid vacation doesn't have to be spent with family

[Bonobo]

15. If potato chips are so good, why do people drink coffee? nt

[Heidi]

99. Exactly.

[HughBeaumont]

17. Work time is important.

Why does THAT have to be paid if you love what you do and would do it for free anyway?

Makes about as much damned sense . . . .

[MrsBrady]

18. did you forget this?

[HughBeaumont]

20. A little new here, I see.

RBTexLa is a one-person flamebaiter. He lurves corporations, he hates democracy, he has the social skills of a pylon, and he will not drink with you.

It's indestructible. Alerting is futile.

Best just to treat it as it is . . . gallows humor.

At least I THINK that's what it is.

[Lex]

25. I wonder . . .

I wonder why a blatant, long-term flame-baiter like this continues to thrive here. Kind of amazing.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

31. Is he the infamous "don't drink with you" guy?

I think I read about him once.

[HughBeaumont]

37. OH yes . . .

[LiberalAndProud]

51. Second reference.

Do you have a link for that? What's the skinny?

[JonLP24]

61. Here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x5330132

[HughBeaumont]

68. Comedy GOLD.

And he doesn't at all get why it is.

That's the best part.

[LiberalAndProud]

96. I miss Redstone.

That is all.

[MrsBrady]

100. i've been here since 2007 n/t

[HughBeaumont]

105. I meant "new to this particular troll", sorry . . .

[OnionPatch]

21. Even if I could afford to take a couple weeks extra

off every year, my employer would not allow it! We're expected to work a certain number of hours a year and there's no wiggle room for unpaid leave unless there's some sort of family emergency. Hell, we had to fight to even get that.

[Cirque du So-What]

22. See, if you can't afford to take off from work - unpaid - for a coupla weeks

it's indicative of a flaw in your character. Unless this is merely drive-by flamebait, you'll see what I mean.

[seabeyond]

24. so that people can afford to take a vacation. makes for a more productive employee so

ultimately it is a selfish act of an employer. it is in the employers self interest.

[opiate69]

30. Mark the cakendar again! Opie agrees wholeheartedly with seabeyond for the 2nd time in a month!

Seriously, you nailed it.

[Incitatus]

26. WINNER!

For the most ignorant post of the day.

[dkf]

27. You have it all wrong...people with no vacation burn out.

It's in a company's interest to get their people to take some time off.

[Indpndnt]

28. Question:

Are you on some sort of medication? Because, really, we'd understand.

Otherwise,

[ForgoTheConsequence]

29. What the fuck?

When this board turn into a center-right/right message board?


If I miss one paycheck, I'm screwed. When I took my job I entered into a contract that said for my efforts I would be awarded a certain amount of vacation time, is it wrong for me to use that? I earned it!

[Union Scribe]

66. +1

[pintobean]

75. This isn't right wing stuff

It's actually too dumb for that. I know that's hard to believe, but it's true. I've worked for right wingers and it was their decision to include paid vacation as a part of compensation. The OP is the first time I've ever heard this stupid argument.

[dionysus]

92. i see you've met RB Texla..

[Nye Bevan]

32. Isn't this purely a semantic issue?

An employer could pay you $40,000 per year with 4 weeks paid vacation. Or he could pay you $833 per week with 4 weeks unpaid vacation, which amounts to exactly the same thing. But lowering the salary slightly and calling it paid vacation probably makes budgeting easier.

[Warpy]

33. Nice way to keep people slaving away 52 weeks a year

instead of being able to recharge their batteries (or fix the roof) during that stingy 2 weeks a year US workers get--if they're lucky enough to be able to afford to forgo the overtime for 2 weeks.

[RegieRocker]

34. Nah you should pay triple to people on vacations

so they have money to spend.

[sabrina 1]

35. "Are there no prisons, and the Union Workhouses, are they still in operation?"

This OP is a joke, right?

[GoneOffShore]

76. Unfortunately no. Typical drive by flamebait from Tex.

[sabrina 1]

109. Really? Can't say I am very familiar with this OP. Which is why I assumed it must be

a joke.

Thanks for the response.

[SammyWinstonJack]

116. Naw...just typical for the OP.

[Chorophyll]

36. Did you forget a sarcasm tag, maybe?

[Barack_America]

38. Worst.Argument.Ever.

[Ikonoklast]

82. No it isn't.

[Electric Monk]

39. I don't vacation with you.

[lumberjack_jeff]

40. +1

[senseandsensibility]

90. Ha! And that thread is even linked here...

so I hope the newbies can enjoy it. Perfect response.

[pa28]

41. You might take your case to the Germans and question their 6 weeks of paid vacation.

Personally I don't know too many people over here who actually take two weeks of paid vacation but there are a few stragglers I'm sure.

I would suggest going to a city street in Munich during lunch hour and make the bastards account for themselves. Tell us all about the results.

Tell us how their economy and civilization is cracking over that compensated vacation time they get.

[eqfan592]

42. I don't know how to respond to this, so here's a picture of two cats who are best buds!

[thelordofhell]

43. Am I missing something here??

Because if I'm not and the OP is actually serious............

[GoneOffShore]

104. Perfect response to the OP.

Thank you.

[liberalhistorian]

112. LOL, no kidding!

And isn't it interesting how the OP hasn't bothered to come back and respond at all in his "swoop and poop" thread?

[cbrer]

44. I call Bullshit on the OP

We, for better or worse, live in a society that functions through the use of money.

Sacrificing ones means, in the presence of such vast, yet morally repugnantly distributed wealth, (that most of us helped in the creation of), is NOT a family value!

[JoeyT]

45. NO U.

POST FLAMEBAIT
RUN AWAY
?????
PROFIT!

[OldDem2012]

46. When you get your offer letter it says you're being paid annually...

....which includes two weeks of vacation.

Oh, by the way, the Lower 99% pay taxes on the salary they receive for that two week period while the Overlords are stashing still more money in the Cayman Islands.

[Berserker]

47. Why

Do you have employees?

[brush]

48. Waste of time

This comment from an apparently anti-union troll is too "cute" to answer other than to point out it's attempt to undermine.

[TheMadMonk]

49. How about you explain how the "Most Advanced Nation on Earth"...

...gets less bang for every buck spent in virtually any area one cares to name: Heathcare, education, performance of military equipment, foreign aid, humanitarian aid.

The only exception appears to be labour where workers are expected to provide more bangs for less bucks every bloody year.

Anywhere else where the opportunity for someone with money to make more money exists, pariculary at the expense of those with far less money then it is damned near the law (is in fact the law in the case of publicly traded companies) that such profit be taken.

Your entire ecconomic system is built around DELIBERATELY wasteful consumption, graft, profit taking, and WAGE THEFT, and you want to fucking wonder why those with the shaft most deeply embedded, can't take a couple more inches.

[BlueinOhio]

60. Yet

We as a whole get less paid time off than almost any other modern advanced country My sister who works at WalMart was just saying last night that they not allow enough vacation time. She has been there for 5 years only gets 1 week. But time off is going by the way with all other worker rights that have been hard won over the last hundred years. The republican assault on families has been relentless. They can't wait until they can force children back to forced labor and school will be for only the elite.

[Cal Carpenter]

80. Cheers

[Rex]

50. Why are employees important to a company?

Did you forget to use your filter this time?

[Trajan]

52. Wow .... That is a rather extreme ANTI progressive sentiment ya got there ....

Not looking good on you, at all ....

Maybe we should bring back child labor too ... Kid's gotta learn to take care of themselves ....

[liberalhistorian]

86. Hey, don't be giving them any ideas

now! They're probably trying to think up ways to do just that as we type. Wouldn't surprise me at all, especially considering the decades-long fight that had to be waged to get factories to stop working six-year-olds 14 hours a day six days a week, because it would "have been a hardship on the employer". Bah.

There's a picture in my old American history textbook (yes, I'm one of those weirdos who keeps the college textbooks even almost thirty years afterwards) that I wish I had the skills to scan and post here. It shows a young child slaving away in a factory (and by young, I'm talking five-six) with the next panel then showing a child of roughly the same age riding its miniature toy car on his family's luxury estate. It was a chapter on the robber baron era that then spawned the progressive party movement at the turn of the century (20th). It packs a real wallop even after all this time of seeing it, and it used actual pictures.

[LynneSin]

54. Unfortunately for many families it is unpaid

For someone working hourly wages if they want time off to spend with the family they have to go without pay. And when a family is trying to make ends meet to pay the bills and keep the family healthy they need every dollar they can earn.

I remember when I worked a full time job that didn't offer paid vacations. Most of my vacations were basically long weekends where maybe I could take a day or two off there or there but before I'd go I'd put in as much extra time possible to make up for the hours I wouldn't be working during the 'vacation'. So that meant I'd end up working a bunch of double shifts stressing myself out so I could take 1-2 days off and relax

I think the minimum that every full time employee should have is 2 weeks paid vacation.

[KG]

55. dumbass

[WinkyDink]

56. I don't get your point. Is this a current topic? Have you been eating lead paint? Are you Paul Ryan?

[B Calm]

57. If our pay was better, then maybe

you'd have a point. But right now the employers could care less about giving the employee a livable wage, so we have to have paid vacation time just to survive.

[NYC Liberal]

58. If family time is so important why shouldn't vacation time have to be paid?

[aandegoons]

59. Only the rich should be able to afford vacations!

Mitt Romney for Secretary of Labor!

[Dash87]

62. Wind up thread. lol

[Honeycombe8]

63. I think you have it backwards. Vacation isn't time demanded by employees....

it's a benefit extended by employers, paid. They don't have to give it. And different cos. give different amounts of time, while some companies don't give any paid vacation.

The employer is in total control of it. It is the employer's decision to pay it.

If I had the option to take 2 weeks off w/o pay, I may or may not take it, depending on whether I can afford it. But it would be totally up to the employer whether he would allow it.

[HappyMe]

64. What the hell?

Because keeping the lights on and tummies full are good family values.

[quinnox]

65. well yea,duh, and furthermore, why should employees get a whole

2 days off a week, when they should be expected to work 7 days a week and 16 hour days! Its those fuckin' unions fault people got it so easy nowadays.

[RoccoR5955]

102. For that matter why do we only work 8, 12, or 16 hours a day?

Why don't employers just require employees to work a full 24 hours a day for a day's pay?

[SidDithers]

67. It's the RB TexLa show...

The name may have changed, but the song remains the same!

Sid

[TBF]

73. He's been here a long time so it's admin territory

nt

[Warren Stupidity]

85. This.

[Codeine]

94. Same Dicktime, same Dickstation! nt

[Rex]

95. Right on the money Sid.

It is getting to be a really boring song and dance.

[SidDithers]

103. It's how EstimatedProphet used to reply the to OP's posts...

and it's still appropriate now, after all these years.



Wonder whatever happened to EstimatedProphet.
Profile is still active, but no posts at DU3: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=136739



Sid

[Rex]

113. Interesting.

I've seen a few of those since we've been here at DU3...wouldn't be surprised if it was 'activated' sometimes in the future. Good eye.

[Caretha]

69. Where are the troll hunters when you need them? n/t

[HughBeaumont]

70. This one's kevlar lined with titanium and tungsten.

Believe me, hundreds have tried.

I've long since said this show needs to sunset once and for all. To no avail.

[Lex]

93. Maybe

it IS one of the Admins since it's allowed to continue to live well past its sell-by date.

[rppper]

71. I'm trying to figure out.....

.....the origins of your name...rb is the throwaway initials I'm guessing, but the TexLa part makes me wonder if your not from either northeast or southeast Texas...the border of louisianna....there are quite a few bass ackwards places in the great piney woods and some bass ackwards people that inhabit said areas....I grew up there, I'm well acquainted with several.....

Dude, you're so uptight you could eat a lump of coal and crap a diamond....loosen up friend.....


Have a drink....eat some cheese and crackers....yes, you can even snack on the ham thingies too.....

[WorseBeforeBetter]

72. It's cute how you fancy yourself some sort of T. Boone Pickens.

Yee-haw.

[Tsiyu]

74. If profits are so important

why do CEOs pay themselves millions?

Shouldn't the profits of the company be worth giving up those massive bonuses? Some business "values," huh?


RB, your drive by post is so pathetic, just like you....I cannot tolerate cowards who start threads but then don't have the backbone to defend their ridiculous arguments.

EARTH TO RB: YOU ARE A COWARD!!!!

[darkangel218]

77. lol!!

[liberal N proud]

78. It's called a benefit!

You work your ass off for 50 week a year, they should be able to give you 2 weeks to rest.

As you work for the company, you get rewarded for your service with additional weeks, I currently get 5.

I know one software company where they pay their employees to take a 6 week sabbatical every 2 years on top of their vacation.

If you don't want your vacation pay, PM me and I will tell you where to send it.

LOL!

[99Forever]

79. Some things in life are very very good.

Not being like you, is one of them.

[treestar]

81. It isn't paid really

Likely it is just factored into the overall salary so that you don't have a stoppage of paychecks due to vacations.

Teachers can take their salary over 12 months if they choose, rather than have a stoppage of larger paychecks in the summer. They just have it spread over the 12 months instead.

[ronnie624]

83. The content of the question makes no sense. It's passive aggressive.

It's meant to say something indirectly, that you can't quite bring yourself to say, directly.

I wonder what that is.

[salin]

87. the point, I would guess, is a smug

swipe at people/families with children.

its a side show that keeps on giving.

[ronnie624]

88. Also,

I'm guessing the poster isn't too friendly to the working class; his biases and allegiance lie elsewhere.

Oh well, there are quite a few corporatist Democrats.

[Warren Stupidity]

84. My brother moved to Europe.

6 weeks annual leave.
Universal health care.
Kids went to university free of charge.
Pensions.

What the fuck.

[Iggo]

89. Comedy goes in The Lounge.

[dionysus]

91. i don't take family time with you.

[U4ikLefty]

108. lol...nice. nt

[RoccoR5955]

101. Just because trolls don't have expenses

doesn't mean that real families don't also.

We need paid vacations, even if we do not have families. Vacation time relieves the stress of a job. It's a break from the monotony. It's a sabbatical. It's a way to explore other things.

We all need time away from work, so that we can do our jobs better. If you do the same thing all the time non stop, you reach a point where your work gets worse with time. We are human beings, not machines.

In other countries they get much more vacation time than we get in the US, and many are more productive than the US.

Oh, and we are not slaves, even if we are wage slaves!

Realistically we should only "work" 3 days a week in production, one day of the week for R & D, one day for interaction between management and labor, and two days to do whatever we want.

And personal time should be relegated to those appointments with service people that need you to be home during business hours, NOT vacation time, or sick time, or family leave time.

[neverforget]

106. Please go spend some time with your family. We're sick of your shit here.

[Autumn]

107. Why work for money at all? Work for free and you can spend a lot of time with your family,

under a bridge or around a garbage container. Do away with ANY sick time, any bereavement time . Perhaps the ruling class will toss down more scraps if people work hard enough .Serf are good. Romney really admires them. Trust in the lord ,he will provide.




How about we fucking forget about family "values" and work toward HUMAN "values" ???

[Zalatix]

110. Oh God.

[CreekDog]

114. I'm just checking in

to call this post 100% total crap.

[GObamaGO]

115. How are you even here on DU?

Spouting this anti labor nonsense. I am sure there are other message boards more tailored to your opinions.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

117. another example

of complete lack of empathy