Maternity leave here depends on your company but its usually 1 year paid at full rate or 2 years paid at half rate

Here it is 6 weeks and lowerclass jobs not even paid just wont loose your hob if you take off 6 weeks. Some companies have 12 weeks but not sure if paid.

I know da may boo-shay (phonetic)

My friend's dog also was trained in polish. i could tell you to sit, lay down, and beg.

Trip to Australia: we started out in Sydney then traveled by train all the way to Cairns, shifting from standard gauge to narrow gauge in Brisbane.
Got a rental car in Cairns, traveling into the Atherton Tablelands and then up to Port Douglas and Daintree.Spent some time on Fraser Island and went diving in the Great Barrier Reef. Had a fantastic time and saw all kinds of wildlife and sea creatures. Certainly I'd like to go back and visit other regions. I was thoroughly impressed with the country and its friendly people. Especially the food was fantastic, much more variety, fresh vegetables and seafood and ethnic cuisines - something that I wasn't really expecting. , mate.

Who cares if no-one knows what we're taking about....it's my normal state of affairs!!

I saw most of the ceremony - and agree about Delta - she is very pretty. And I'm impressed that she could sing with all that smoke billowing around....and those skaters with the fireworks on their backs....way cool, but that has got to be scary!!!!

sucks for you guys! Im going to be a teacher, so every summer off! yeah teachers get shitty pay, but if you only worked 3/4 of the year youd be ok with it!

I cant wait to go on vacations!! I think im going to Italy first...

For all of you non-Americans, don't rest on your laurels too long.

With globalization, there is tremendous natural and unnatural pressures to even the playing field in terms of labor markets, pay and benefits. That means, over the long run, less vacation time, etc. for countries that have historically had a lot of it.

Unnatural pressures would be some of the labor laws that have been enacted as the EU emerged. In order to joing the EU, countries have had to change certain labor laws to allow uniformity between countries.

Natural pressures, in my view, include what is going on in France right now. In order to encourage businesses to higher more youths and minorities, the government there is pushing legislation that will allow employers to lay off/terminate an employ for any reason in their first year or two. Employers say this will encourage them to higher more young workers and reduce the high unemployment levels of youths and immigrants. However, for those in France used to protected jobs, this is a shock to the system. For this reason, right now in France, there are demonstrations, bordering on riots against this. In the United States, this type of employer-employee relationship is a big yawn.

So, just don't get too comfortable.....

I think that it´s terrible what they are doing in France right now....Se had a strike here because our professional drivers (trucks, bus etc.) think that firms are using too much people that has only a appointed time deal...the strike lasted about a week and then they made a good deal I hope that next strike that we have is about nurses pay, we don´t get enough money for our work (even busdriver is earning more money than a nurse!)

I think that our goverment don´t have guts to cut our vacation the whole country would be just a one big strike

I understand what you are saying, Summoner. Pure capitalism can be de-humanizing and lead to worsening working conditions.

However, with globalization what you have is the ability of companies -- particularly, transnational companies -- to move operations and manufacturing to areas with lower costs. This has happened a lot in the United States with manufacturing. Manufacturing jobs have moved to Mexico, China, and a zillion other places. A lot of high-tech jobs (software engineering, call centers) have moved to places like India.

Nursing, and other similar jobs, is relatively protected from something like this because you can't do it remotely. It's in person. But then, people import nurses from third-world countries, where the people would jump at the chance to earn pay that we don't think is very good.

I may be wrong, but when Britain had its most protections for employees, it also had the highest unemployment rate.

Stop scaring me OB

Don't be scared, Diane. The United States functions pretty mean and lean -- it's countries with high benefits that have to worry about how to sustain them. Sweden used to provide all kinds of incredible benefits for employees - health, vacation, etc. But the country was going bankrupt trying to do this and compete with other countries at the same time. It ended the worker's paradise model. Germany, another country that has tremendous worker benefits has a huge unemployment rate right now. It can't compete with a lot of other countries when it has to pay its workers so much in terms of combined pay and benefits.

The important rule to live by is "don't fool yourself" - am I good at my job? Am I increasing my skills? Do I have positive visibility within my company?

Also, always be thinking about pursuing a job that a) you really like, and you can distinguish yourself in with unique capabilities. If you can achieve , you can earn money that is atypical and above the typical levels of pay. The best ways of achieving are:

1. Be innovative. Come up with cool new ideas for how to do things and how to make better products or provide better services.

2. Be a crucial part of cash flow. Do things that make your company/organization more revenue (or save them revenue). People will notice and pay you accordingly.

2. Be irreplaceable. Someone who, if they left, would tear the heart out of their company.

I'm scared cause I wanna move to Aussie land and dont want to move from here to be worked to death there:P

A fun job I think would to be a PI I would be good at that:D

I can't do any of that! I'm just gonna quit, move to the woods and keep a journal of my thoughts.



Australia? Stalking bondi I presume?

Shhhhhhhhhh its a secret;)

It is that or Mexico. I used to say canada but I need the tropics.

The tropics and it's further away from Gnappy.

Can NO ONE keep a secret anymore. Good Grief.

OOPS, you didn't say that was a secret.

Where did this thread go from talking about holidays (nice thread) to a bloody economic thesis??

BTW, I'm on holiday again next month

That sucks, I gotta save my 2 weeks. 1 week between Christmas and New Year's to go visit family and the other for anything fun that might come up. I need more vaca time.

Oh yea, Sweet, have a nice holiday, going anywhere?

I guess Vegas didnt sound fun enough.