So far in my job searching, I've found that corporate Web sites often provide
more amusement or frustration than enlightenment. E-mail addresses that deliver
text into black holes, submission forms that don't submit, and -- my favorite --
Web sites that don't even list a company's actual physical mailing address. Are
they in Berkeley or Boise? Who knows!
But -- color me easily amused -- last night I discovered a company's HR pages
listing among their full-time job benefits: "Paid vacation days." Several
things came to mind:
- We're talking days, not weeks here? Notice the perk
wasn't listed as [x] amount of paid vacation. - Are there any companies offering full time jobs without any paid
vacation days? What next, an HR page bragging about "use of office chairs" or
"free use of office bathrooms!"? - Do non-American firms similarly list the existence of vacation days as a
perk? - Will this blog entry get me blacklisted from certain companies?
Of course, you can probably guess the overall issue I'm getting at here:
American companies are notoriously stingy about vacation days. And forgive me
for sounding lazy, but in my not so humble opinion, there's something wrong with
a culture in which it's common to hear bragging about hours worked and vacation
days NOT taken. The whole quantity vs. quality thing.
I don't know who is more to blame: American companies for typically granting
new employees a stingy 10 days of vacation a year (compared to 20-30 in Europe),
or Americans for taking pride in the fact that they're so "hard working"... and
not ashamed to "see" 5 countries in 10 days on their forced-whirlwind European
vacation.
And the sad thing is... this sort of warped-work-ethic seems to be in place
regardless of the economy. In the boom times here in San Francisco, seemingly
no one dared take even a day off of their Internet-paced job, since every minute
counted towards and following that big IPO!
Now that the economy has cooled and headhunters have ceased calling folks
like me every 3 days, employees are fearful not of losing opportunities, but
losing their jobs if they appear to be less hard-working than the person in the
cubicle next to them.
Worse yet, it seems that companies are increasingly valuing people who work
longer rather than people who work smarter. Similarly, our
society seems to grant more 'prestige' upon careers that require greater time
expenditures. Note the stereotypically proud: "My son is a lawyer!" or
surgeon or doctor and so on. Conversely, I've heard lots of snickering directed
towards my teacher friends who "have it easy, with their summers off and all."
In a strange twist of logic and self-adjustment, then, I've noticed that
several of my friends are actively staying at work longer even when there's
no more work to do... resulting in them filling up their time with IM'ing,
e-mailing, Web surfing, anything so long as they give 'face time' to their
company and don't appear to be slacking by "going home early."
In contrast, at one of my last jobs I was lucky enough to have a smart set of
colleagues in my department; we worked hard when we had deadlines and often
worked late as needed, and then arrived into work late when there was less work
to do. When we had client meetings in the morning, we'd come in early to prep,
and then go home early, and so on. In other words, we worked efficiently,
tailoring our schedule according to the needs of our colleagues, our clients,
and yes, ourselves. I still put in certainly more than 40 hours a week, but I
believe I accomplished quite a bit more than some
overworking-but-underachieving-colleagues who routinely burned the midnight oil.
So I ask... when will the rest of America's companies and workers wise up to
working smarter, not harder? If we need any encouragement, let's note the
French, who have a mandated 35-hour work week, eat long and delicious meals, and
still manage to stay beautiful and thin.
Although, hmm, they all smoke, too. But I guess I digress, and this is stuff
for another post :-)
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