On Aug 3, 8:05 am, B Anderson <b...@qld.com> wrote:
> So now we have a glorious repeat of Golden Week coming up September,
> whereby the day between two holidays has been declared another holiday.
>
> But it is not glorious. Why must the Japanese have these elongated
> sessions of national holidays? It is disruptive, bad for productivity,
> and everyone pours into holiday destinations, crams onto planes and
> shinkansens that are near empty most of the year.
>
So stay home; that's the great thing about the holidays. And as Mike
suggested, work.

> My office deals with many overseas clients and they basically freak out,
> thinking we are ignoring their calls and e-mails.
>
So... tell them you'll be out, that it's a national holiday, sorry,
and, if you have to... work.

> And I can answer my own question: the Japs need to be forced at gunpoint
> to take a holiday. Their office has to actually be closed to convince
> them to take days off.
>
Correct, though I hope you realized that particular way of referring
to Japanese is pretty offensive. But I believe your assertion is
right. At some point I think Japanese offices confused having a good
work ethic with being productive.

> They get 2 weeks annual leave but I doubt they take even a week in any
> given year. I know someone whose summer holidays consist of two Fridays
> off in a row. WOW!! Really kicking back there, that sure makes up for
> the 14 hour days.

Way back when I knew of a guy that hadn't taken a day off in his 20
years with the company, and the company allowed him to roll that
vacation over from year to year. His goal was to accumulate enough
vacation so that he could retire 18 months early. I thought that
sounded like a good plan.

John W.