"My daddy worked hard, and so have I.....paid our taxes and gave our lives to serve this great country....so what are they complaining about?? We love our families and love our kids...it's love that makes all so rich....that's where we are at."
Lynyrd Skynyrd - RED, WHITE AND BLUE
Today is Father's Day. It is the day when we honor our Dads and all they have done for us.
My Dad worked hard to make sure we had the things he did without as a child who grew up during the depression, the 1940's and World War 2. My Dad served in the Army during the Korean conflict in Alaska keeping the phone lines open between Korea and the US. No combat duty but two years in the cold and isolation of the frozen wilderness. Like the men of his era, he did what was required and did not complain about what he had to do, he just did what was needed. He earned the rewards of his hard work and was able to retire to a small town on Cape Cod, residing there today at the ripe age of 83 years young. His generation were likely the last ones who will get what all should expect after a life's work - security and the ability to enjoy retirement.
My Dad is the man I would some day hope to be - patient, understanding and above all, a good man who made sure he was always there for all of us. I have modeled my fatherhood skills after his and it is still something I strive to do each day - be more like my Dad. He is the "rock" that made all the rest of our lives possible.
Today, Dads face the same issues our Dads dealt with - trying to be the best Dad and providing what is needed. Moms face some of the same issues as our economy has made it necessary for both parents to become wage earners. Dads still bear the larger part of being the wage earners the same way as Moms still deal with the majority of the household chores. It is a bit of a stereotype, but this is the norm for most.
This will be the third Father's Day I have spent in Afghanistan. I have been working contract work over here since 2009 with a few short breaks. One way or the other, I have been here for the Spring and Summer months and that places me away from home on Father's Day. My wife sends along cards and small gifts via care packages and her gesture is deeply appreciated. She has also had to deal with me being away on Mother's Day, so she understands what we both recognize - life is truly different for Fathers and Mothers in this day and age. She works hard keeping the homefront going and I work hard here earning what is needed. It is a Faustian deal that we have been forced to take as the alternative ( failure or loss of our home) is untenable on all levels.
We are not working here to buy shiny new convertibles or to amass a big new home - our goals are much more simple as we look to take care of our humble house and make sure that we can live there for the remainder of our lives....a simple desire to do our best, take care of each other and do the work the good Lord has given us.
Our oldest child will turn 30 this year and we have 3 out of 4 kids out of the house living their own lives. The task of raising them into adults has been completed but as a Dad, my influence and mentoring continues throughout the rest of their lives. I hope that they each make good choices and that the life they choose will be a good one. I can only offer advice and make sure that I am there when they need me, even if it is sometimes via Skype and an email or two.
Today is a work day for me and like many other Dads, I will do what is needed to make sure the homefront gets what is needed. Dads all over the world will spend today enjoying time with their kids celebrating the day at home. Many others in uniform and those like me working here in Afghanistan will be away from home and the celebration of Father's Day. At the same time, what we do shows that we are focusing on what is truly important as Dads....we are forgoing the accolades and day off to ensure the homefront gets the much needed support our work provides. There will be Father's Days in the future where we will be able to spend the day relaxing on the back deck and/or BBQing some tasty food. The work we do today ensures that those future Dad's Days will be there and that we will be able to share that day with our family.
To Dad's everywhere - Happy Father's Day and many more to come !! I salute each of you for your efforts and the efforts of our Dads who gave us their best each and every day.
The Japanese have coined a word for what we are seeing in the American workplace -
''Karoshi" which means (Work to Death)''
American workers are now so afraid to take time off from work due to the recession, they are not taking time they are fully entitled to and need. No one can tell me that this isn't a sign of the continuing lack of real leadership in businesses and Washington.
People need time off - Studies prove that the best performing teams are those that get ample time off and have the ability to control their own schedules.....But we see that people are afraid that asking for time off will make them prime candidates for the next round of lay-offs.
This is NOT what we should be seeing in our country....it is time for a change as whatever has been going on for the last three and 1/2 years has only made this situation worse.
No time for vacation time?
Why the majority of workers can't -- or won't -- take time off, no matter
how secure their jobs are.
By Joseph P. Kahn
Boston Globe Staff / June 16, 2012
To be gone, or not to be. That is the question.
With peak vacation season looming, it’s certainly a question Meagan O’Hara
and millions more like her have been asking themselves. Do I take all the
time off coming to me? Can I really afford to, financially or otherwise? Or
will I be returning to so much backlogged work that it’s actually less
stressful to stay in the office rather than head for the beach?
This spring, O’Hara, 26, director of business development for a Boston
office-relocation management firm, took the first full-week vacation of her
working life — a Caribbean cruise — but not without some wariness. She’s
held other jobs before — marketing assistant, executive assistant — that
guaranteed her time off. Getting away for an entire week? That did not
happen, she says, because her bosses might decide they could get along fine
without her.
“I’d take a Monday or Friday off, but not full weeks or multiple days,”
O’Hara says. “I kind of felt I wasn’t allowed to, even though the vacation
days were well deserved.”
For younger workers like herself, adds O’Hara, leaving vacation on the
table shows a willingness to do more than what’s expected. Fortunately, her
current employer values taking time off. “If it’s not openly encouraged,
though, you don’t take it,” she says.
According to a recent study by Harris Interactive, an Internet-based market
research firm, 57 percent of Americans ended 2011 with unused vacation
time, failing to take, on average, 11 of their allotted days off — or 70
percent of what they’d rightfully earned. Other national surveys have
calculated that as many as 66 percent of us keep working when we could be
kicking back somewhere, leaving unused a total of 459 million vacation
days.
This mounting pile of bypassed perks has led to the United States being
dubbed “no vacation nation” by Europeans and others who take long,
leisurely vacations. Also creeping into the vernacular: “naycationers”
(those who take little or no time off), “breakations” (lasting only three
to four days), and, of course, “staycations” (time off taken close to home
— or even at home).
“Anecdotally at least, you hear vacation deprivation is getting worse,”
says John de Graaf, executive director of the Seattle-based organization
Take Back Your Time. He co-wrote a 2009 bill mandating paid vacations for
most American workers. (Submitted to Congress, it went nowhere.)
Given studies showing links between working too much — and too long without
time away — and increased risk for health problems like heart disease and
depression, says de Graaf, “It’s really very silly, particularly when
vacations could be one way to reduce health-care costs.“ Yet job security,
or lack thereof, skews our priorities, he maintains.
“Fear is the primary motivator,” de Graaf says. “When the economy’s weak,
they think, ‘I’d better show I’m 110 percent committed to my job.’ And with
companies downsizing and giving people more to do, the stress of coming
back to hundreds of e-mails overwhelms the stress of staying at work.”
“Naycationers” also worry about being tethered to work via cellphone and
e-mail while away, or paying for an expensive vacation — goodbye Vineyard
summer rental! — during tight financial times, de Graaf says.
Sarah Nasnic and her boyfriend could go to Cape Cod for a week this summer,
she says, “but what if the economy tanks tomorrow?” Nasnic, 25, who works
in marketing for a Boston architectural firm, has two weeks vacation coming
this year. She may not use them, though, partly to save money and partly to
continue team-building with her new boss.
Previously, Nasnic worked for a smaller company where job responsibilities
also kept her from taking sustained time off. The result was a happy
surprise: $2,000 in unused-vacation pay when she left the firm. “At this
point in my life and career, I’m not taking any long or lavish vacations,”
Nasnic says.
Howard Goldman has tried to get away from the office more as his kids move
through their teenage years. And yet he rarely stays away for long,
although it has nothing to do with impressing the boss. Goldman is chief
executive of Humboldt Storage and Moving in Canton, a company with nearly
100 employees.
“I’ve never taken my full vacation time,” he acknowledges. “One of the
biggest issues for me is coming back to the enormous amount of e-mails that
pile up, because the work doesn’t stop while you’re away.”
Only once in 20 years has Goldman taken 10 consecutive days off (his wife
lobbied for two weeks) to travel overseas for his daughter’s dance
competition. “It’s hard for me to take even a week off,” he says, “even
though I have a great management team to handle things when I am gone.”
Paradoxically, notes Boston University sociologist Juliet Schor, the
pressure to stay working is felt both in boom times and bad ones. When
business is going well, employers tend to increase individual workloads,
hoping to keep the enterprise running smoothly. During downturns, employees
worry their jobs will grow more difficult, or even disappear. Decisions
about taking time off often hinge on assessing individual risks and
rewards.
“In the higher ranks (of companies), not taking vacation time is more about
not getting the job done,” says Schor. “Whereas at the bottom of the
market, employees can often cash out on unused vacation time when they
leave. For them, it becomes a financial strategy.”
Is there a price to pay for squandering vacation, even if it means more
money in one’s pocket? “Yes,” says Schor. “Common sense says the ability to
step away from the work is very important.”
Harvard Business School professor Leslie Purlow’s new book is titled
“Sleeping With Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the
Way You Work,” based on her work with The Boston Consulting Group, the
well-known professional service firm. Purlow focuses on what she calls “the
great impossibility” of taking “pure, guilt-free time off” at a company
like BCG, whose clients expect 24/7 access.
Since she began her study of BCG, the firm has organized itself into
hundreds of smaller teams that systematically plan their time away from
work, a process initially christened PTO, short for “predictable time off.”
At first, that meant one night a week without checking e-mail, text, or
phone messages. But it has grown to encompass planned vacation time, too.
“Even though it sounds counterintuitive, the very act of planning makes
them rethink what they do, what their priorities are,” says Purlow. Among
the benefits, she adds, are improved employee retention, better work-life
balance, and increased productivity, adding value to what the firm does for
clients.
BCG project manager Jon Swan agrees that “refreshed brains tend to be more
productive ones,” as he puts it. But a company culture must encourage such
thinking. One friend of his who works in banking was told not to take his
family on a cruise, says Swan. Why? Because in a work emergency, he’d be
stuck at sea and unable to fly home. Instead, his friend took his family to
a destination located near a major airport.
Swan went a different route last fall. After months of planning, he took
his family on a four-day, midweek trip to Disney World, an ongoing work
project notwithstanding. “I’d built the right coverage model,” he says, and
having that flexibility “became an important part of the project.”
Winthrop town manager James McKenna has no such flexibility, he says, which
is why he won’t use three of his four weeks vacation time this year. Again.
With hundreds of town employees working under him, that’s a luxury he
cannot afford.
Municipal governments have seen a lot of budget cuts in the last decade,”
says McKenna. “As a manager, you’re not as free with your time. There’s
virtually no backstop, like there is in the private sector.
“Vacation seems more of a luxury now,” McKenna says. “I’d like to spend
more time with my family, but I’m not holding my breath.”
Joseph P. Kahn can be reached at jkahn@globe.com
Today is Father's Day. It is the day when we honor our Dads and all they have done for us.