Five Day Weekends an Answer to Work Life Balance
Are the Friends of the Five Day Weekend carrying this work-life balance thing a bit too far?
The stated goal of The Five Day Weekend Movement is:
“We want to reverse the U.S. workweek so that Americans clock in for two good days of work, followed by five well-earned days off.
Why? Because overwork has become a major problem for Americans, and it’s getting worse by the year. The two-day weekend was created in 1930, and despite decades of unparalleled technology growth, our people are actually working more and more each year.
Check out the stats:
- Americans wasted more than 570 million vacation days in 2006
- Unlike 96 other countries, the U.S. has no law governing vacations
- U.S. workers receive an average of 14 vacation days but only use 10 a year
- By comparison, French workers receive 39 vacation days, and Germans get 27
- Americans have increasingly worked more days a year since World War II
- A nine-year university study recently found that not taking vacation can increase the chance of heart attack or coronary disease.
- In 2006, members of the U.S. Congress clocked 104 days in session - which means they worked exactly two days a week.
We want to stop this trend and begin to reverse it. So we’re aiming high and going for a Five Day Weekend.”
As Tim Nudd at AdFreak.com points out, it is a clever tourism promotion brilliantly designed to entice you to vacation in Asheville, NC, for five days at a time if at all possible.
What do you tell your boss about your desire for a five day weekend? Here’s Ron McCrerey, Campaign Director for Friends of The Five Day Weekend:
Ahh, if it were only that simple. Too many of us would probably still overwork because we create this artificial excuse of being responsible (for client satisfaction, for covering for others, for satisfying every boss or client request).