It rained this week. Not a lot, but after the driest summer since Prohibition it felt like a deluge. Six Victorians, gaping open-mouthed at the sky in confusion, drowned.
Take it as distant thunder, a warning of what lies ahead: short days, long pants, longer faces. The back-to-school ads read like obituaries for our Huck Finn freedom.
The question now is whether you took advantage of the glorious summer that God gave us or — blasphemy! — frittered it away at work. Here’s a checklist:
• Did you get sand in your shoes?
• Are you still using last year’s sunblock?
• Did you have to refill the barbecue tank?
• Is your fishing tackle rusty, your sleeping bag musty?
• Did you throw an outdoor party? Are you too embarrassed to give the bottle-drive kids all your empties at once?
• Did you take vacation?
That last one is interesting, as surveys show Canadians often don’t take the holidays to which they are entitled — and relative to the rest of the developed world, we’re not entitled to that many.
When the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic Policy and Research compared the minimum number of holidays required by law in 21 wealthy countries, Canada ranked third from the bottom. With a combined total of 19 vacation days and statutory holidays, we trail only Japan and the U.S., according to a survey released this summer.
By contrast, all European Union countries demand at least four weeks paid vacation alone. Austria and Portugal have a minimum of 35 paid vacation days and stats. Spain and Germany have 34. (Getting out-vacationed by the hard-working Germans is like losing a hot dog eating contest to a supermodel.)
And get this: Five of the countries in the survey even make employers pay vacationing workers a small premium to offset holiday-related expenses. (The sound you hear is the exploding heads of Canadian employers, not to mention the self-employed and unemployed.)
A separate study by Mercer Consulting placed Canada dead last in the number of minimum paid days off, saying that in practice U.S. companies typically offer at least 25 stat and vacation days.
Of course, the minimum legal requirement doesn’t reflect the number of days actually taken. According to Expedia.ca’s online 2013 “vacation deprivation” survey, Canadians get an average of 17 vacation days annually — half as many as most Europeans enjoy. Expedia ranks us near the bottom of the list in a “vacation-deprived” group that includes the U.S., Mexico, Singapore and South Korea.
What’s more, 27 per cent of Canadians don’t take all the holidays they earn, largely because they are too busy at work or there aren’t enough staff to cover their jobs. Just over half of the British Columbians surveyed have cancelled vacations because, gosh, they couldn’t possibly leave work without the whole company collapsing like the Maple Leafs in the playoffs.
Even when we play, we work: Six in 10 Canadians check office voice mail or email at least sporadically while away. Just have to scratch that itch.
Which brings us to the appropriately named Labour Day, when you are supposed to swap your swim trunks for corporate climbing gear (suit, tie, underwear) and go back to the grind. Everybody out of the pool and into a funk.
The question, whether you have a job to return to or not, whether you took an actual vacation or not, is how you spent a summer so glorious it belonged in a beer commercial. Did you carouse, neglect the yard, call in “sick” from the beach, outsleep the dog, lose your sunglasses to an outhouse, and jump into the lake with all your clothes on (and your phone in your pocket) — or did you squander summer instead?
It’s not too late. Draw up a bucket list of what you want to achieve (or, better yet, not achieve) before the season dies. Get outside, as far from the pavement as you can. Wear short pants. Or no pants (but don’t forget sunscreen). Sleep under the stars, or at least the moderately well-known.
This summer has been a gift. Open it.
© Copyright 2013
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