Be he a laborer on a construction crew or a law professor on a college campus, the free time away from the work environment is something he looks forward to.
In Whispering Pines, retirees have a day off every 24 hours, unless you consider the time set aside for golf or other leisure activities “work.” But the rest of the community residents who are still part of the work force cherish the precious week or two (or more) that they have each year to do what they want, away from the office or job site.
How much time one gets off varies immensely. For many decades the lucky ones get one week off with pay, while others simply got the week off. In many mill towns in New England, the factories simply shut down for one week, and every employee took that time to go to the lake cottage or sit on the front porch or travel to Aunt Stella’s.
Later, two-week vacations became more common, and holiday trips were extended for families. Some in Whispering Pines were more fortunate than others. Educators had longer periods of inactivity and many took odd jobs in the summertime to earn extra cash. Federal government employees, always treated with kid gloves by the politicians in Washington, were given 13, 20 or 26 days off a year, depending on the length of their service.
But all of this free time pales when compared to what the good folks in Europe accumulate. France has a reputation for shutting down in August, when businesses close and employees are off to the beaches of the Mediterranean for an extended period.
In Germany, the law requires that employees be given at least 24 days off each year, but most labor contracts call for 30 or 32 days as the norm. Adding 10 national holidays and several regional observances to the mix provides the average German worker with more than eight weeks away from the job each year.
As a result, the yearly hours per employee for German workers were just 1,444 last year. This compares to 1,904 hours put in by workers in the United States.
The trend in Germany over the past several years has been a steady drop in the number of hours put in by employees. Workers there were on the job an average of 2,162 hours in 1960.
Though the Germans like their time off, the drop in work time has had an effect on the nation’s economy. Economic growth has been stagnant for the past several years, and some economists in the country insist that fixing the problems requires “workers showing up for work.”
Getting them to do so is no easy matter. One graphic designer in the country said in an interview, “I don’t want to work all the time. I want to relax and see other countries.”
Commenting on the phenomenon, one of my Whispering Pines colleagues insists that he has noticed the drop in German efficiency right here in the village.
“My Mercedes doesn’t seem to run as smoothly as my last one,” he said, suggesting that the worker putting the car together on the assembly line might have been off that day.
Another noted that she noticed that a recently purchased Hummel figure was carrying an umbrella with a hole in it. Clearly this was a case of an artisan either looking forward to his vacation and not paying attention to details, or a craftsman having just returned from a month in Thailand and still recovering from his vacation activity.
A third village resident insisted that the Adidas footwear he put on to take his daily stroll had a lump in the sole of the shoe, and it had to be there because a worker in the shoe factory wasn’t.
Whatever the case, the problems in Germany may affect the economy of that powerful nation, but they will produce only minor glitches in the lives of village residents.
We really won’t have to put up with shoddy quality in German products. We actually don’t even pay attention to what comes from the Rhineland and what doesn’t.
But we can’t help but notice the length of German vacation periods and wish we were so lucky. A few more auf wiederschen’s and a few less punchings of the cards would be nice.
Don Winslow writes about life in Whispering Pines. He may be e-mailed at donwin@charter.net.
