Hi Fred, > What are Holidays like there, I was a postman before I went to > college, six days a week, when I left after 13 years, I was allowed 3 > weeks summer leave and 3 weeks winter leave,, plus bank holidays etc > a year, but most jobs offer 21 days plus bank holidays, 25 - 30 > working days a year.
Americans as a group are workaholics, imo. The U.S. has just 6 "mandatory" federal holidays: New Year's Day, Memorial Day (in May), Independence Day (July 4), Labor Day (September), Thanksgiving (November), and Christmas (December 25). If you have to work on any of those holidays, you are supposed to be paid at twice your hourly rate (if you are paid hourly), or given compensatory time (if you are salaried). I worked for almost 5 years for a man who observed ONLY those 6 holidays, and he grumbled about them. Today I work for a wonderful company that observes all federal holidays plus Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday (January), President's Day (February), Columbus Day (October), Veteran's Day (November 11), and the day after Thanksgiving. My company is also very liberal about closing the office early (or entirely) around Christmas and various holidays that create long weekends. My mom worked for her company for 29 years and had 6 weeks of vacation annually, but she was very fortunate. In my experience, that is not the norm in the U.S. of A. Lori
