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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(via @CBSNews)

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?

When Stories Are In Sync With My Life...

In a journal entry dated 4-14-10:

I was hoping that today, as a Wednesday, would not be one of my typical Wednesdays interning at YNN. This is because usually Wednesdays tend to be filled with problems, failures in finding a successful story, and coverage mishaps. Luckily for Kat and I, today was different...in a good way!

Kat and I went to Le Moyne College to do a story on graduating seniors looking for jobs in the current economy. It was a pretty light, basic story to cover on a slower news day, and the package came out looking pretty good. For the first Wednesday ever, I was able to complete my entire package, but that probably had to do with the fact that we had already shot everything and returned to the station by 6:00ish.

That being said, we spoke to someone from their Career Service department and variety of Le Moyne seniors. What we learned is that the job market is still down 15% from where it was two years ago. But considering how bad it was for graduates last year, it has actually improved 5% from last year.

Students do seem worried about finding jobs in their field, and are therefore keeping their options as open as possible. Both the students and career counselor told us the best thing one can do is make their resumes stand out, either by completing as many internships as possible or being involved on-campus.

As someone graduating from school in May, this story was completely relevant for me and piqued my interest. Luckily, I was also hired Monday as a VJ (Video Journalist) at YNN in the bureau in Corning, NY. My job search has officially ended :)