Are 20-30 Days of Mandatory Time Off from Work a Possibility?

On my first day at my first "real" job reporting, I sat through an online "webinar" orientation which informed me of my rights, responsibilities, and perks as an employee of a Time Warner Cable news operation. One of those perks, of course, was time off. And no matter how I excited I am to have gotten hired, to be working at my job, and to thoroughly enjoy it, vacation time was a huge concern for me. No matter where it is I'm working, I want to know I'll be able to take time off for a religious holiday or Thanksgiving. I am guilty of already thinking of time off from work before even starting it, and at first I felt guilty. But after watching this video, I realized I shouldn't have.

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It is only natural to want and even NEED time away from the office. I was unaware of the possible legislation that would mandate time off, but now that I am, I'm all for it! This is not because I'm a lazy Gen-Y'er who wants to party with my girlfriends on a beach or who expects a romantic getaway with my boyfriend every once in a while. This is because Americans are some of the hardest working people in the world. If the French, Germans, and Italians are on par with us in terms of success, productivity, and stability, we, too, should have 20-30 mandatory vacations days no matter what your job is.

What do you think?

Nothing Like a Little Spring Cleaning

On Friday, I knew I'd be going out on a story with Karen because Joleene was out for vacation. As we sat in the morning news meeting and I overheard one of the reporters say this week was "one of the slowest" he could remember "in a long time," I realized we wouldn't be covering any significant piece of hard new.

But it was a fun day regardless because Karen and I went to Strawberry Farms in Clay for the major community garage sales the development holds every year. Many families and homes held garage sales, and as usual, hundreds of people stopped by the neighborhood for some bargain hunting.

Vendors told us people starting coming to their houses at 5:30am and continued throughout the day to scope out clothes, furniture, books, and toys. People parked a mile outside Strawberry Farms just to get in. Ice cream trucks were parked down the street to make the most of the heat and craziness.

We put an economic spin on our story, asking shoppers and buyers whether or not they think the economic recession is over, why they thought people were coming to the garage sales this year, and if there were more or less people attending than in years prior. As it turns out, there were mixed opinions on whether or not the recession was ending, but some did think there were more at the sales than usual since the cheaper, the better!

It wound up being a quick, easy story to turn, which allowed for a lot of girly bonding back at the station between all the reporters and made the day really enjoyable!