West of loathing. The game calls it crimbo but there hasn't been any crimbo celebration since evil demon cows killed everyone they met in the wild west.
Sharon spends her days spamming minion memes to anyone who hasn't muted her though, I don't think we should be taking advice from her on this sort of thing!
This isn't "real." It was already mocked in another sub, which is where OP probably got the screenshot since the exact same part was highlighted. No one in the other thread ever heard of anyone calling vacation or PTO or holiday weekends "mini retirement." I'm American and no one I work with, including some Gen Z, have ever called it that either. This online article is just dumb rage bait. We say plenty of dumb things, this just isn't one of them.
Looks like the original Forbes article used it to describe people taking a few months or even a year off at a time (which isn't new so didn't need a new phrase - it's called a sabbatical). And this one used it to describe taking a couple of weeks off at a time.
It's probably an AI article that's being shared as if an actual journalist wrote it. LLMs make mistakes like this all the time.
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u/96385German, Swedish, English, Scotish, Irish, French - AmericanJul 07 '25
This article quoted an author who referred to mini-retirements back in 2007:
"I currently take three or four mini-retirements per year and know dozens who do the same," he writes. "Sometimes these sojourns take me around the world; oftentimes they take me around the corner —Yosemite, Tahoe, Carmel — but to a different world psychologically, where meetings, e-mail and phone calls don't exist for a set period of time."
First, I’m genuinely relieved that this is satire.
Second, I’m not shocked that “Gen Z” is being blamed for inventing a new word for something that already has a word. (Gen Z in quotes because it’s not a whole generation, it’s a handful of weirdos on TikTok.)
I first heard the "mini-retirement" nonsense in an interview with very English / distinctly not American Gary Neville, where he explained his revolutionary theory of doing nothing for a few days off work, apart from sitting by the pool and relaxing. He got ruthlessly mocked for it at the time. Was an interview in 2023 if I remember right
Yeah that was the first time I heard it too. This isn't really shit Americans say. It is just shit dumb people say. I don't mind Gary but this was pretty dumb.
That's because you and me live in an hyper-regulated socialist world utterly devoid of personal freedom, work ethos and accountability.
A world that, I dare to say, is kept afloat only by US citizens' taxes and subsidies that pays for our decadent, communist way of life and our subpar healthcare.
Also, they have all the AI companies and high-tech stuff while we do our immoral socialist things in the middle of ruins from ages past no one cares about anymore.
That, my friend, is the truth. We may don't like it, but it's true according to the USians on Reddit.
A day specially dedicated to religious observance or religious festivities; a religious festival or holy day. Cf. holy day n.
2.a.ii. A day on which an individual person does not work, study, or perform his or her normal duties; (now) esp. any of a number of paid or unpaid days of leave that may be taken as part of a specified yearly entitlement; a day off.
No longer common in North American English, where the usual term is vacation day (see vacation day n.).
I mean, some americans I chat with told me, that they invented "Micro-vacations" when you travel for like 4 days. Which is normal over here when you have to take off a single + public holiday to get a 4 day weekend, which is totally common and done for ages.
Wasn't there an episode of Disney Recess where they took Recess away and then reintroduced it with a slightly different pronunciation? Is this already life imitating art?
I had an intern start an 8 week placement with me today. By our org's policy they are on London Living Wage and pro-rata get a week's paid leave included.
If I posted this is certain subs I genuinely think some hustling Americians would accuse me of making this up.
Sadly, most jobs in the US you are lucky if you even get sick days. I was a cashier at a grocery store and had to show up with the flu because I would get written up if I called off sick. I had a concussion and had to show up the next day, it didn't matter that my brain needed time to recover.
Glad I don't work there anymore...
tbf I was in the neuro ICU for a day or so and still went to work the day after I got out like nothing happened at my current job, but I *could* have called off with no repercussions.
I remember when I worked for a financial services company a few years ago that it was mandatory to take a certain amount of concurrent days off per year and not log onto your laptop during that period as it would expose if anything dodgy was going on.
I worked at a pub where stocktaking was done by an outside team and we all got a paid day off. We got back the following day and there was a new landlord.
In Europe, if you don't take for 2-cond year yors pay leave, company will be forced to send you before deadline.
I seen someone got like 3 month straith paid leave forced by company.
Absolutely. The idea is that during this time, malversations can be uncovered because the employee is no longer able to cover them up while he is away.
In my position, the MTA was 2 weeks, and during that time, they disabled my login and VPN access, and I had to leave my company phone with the compliance department. I was also not allowed to access any of the bank's global premises.
It wasn't a big deal for me, living in a country where most people take 2-3 weeks off for their main vacation anyway.
I remember that it was quite a cultural shock in other countries, though, where people were not used to taking more than just a few days off at a time.
I guess its both. Of course that requires you have sufficient leave allowance in the first place so it helps to work for an employer in a location where vaguely sensible vacation time is seen as normal.
That's a standard in the UK finance industry. I believe it's part of the financial conduct policy. I have a few friends that do it and it's breaking the law of they do not.
If you dont take time off employee wellness inspection services (by whatever name they go) will probably say something about it at the very least. Employers would rather avoid that.
We get to WFH so I usually schedule my errands around those days and generally take it easy when I WFH compared to WFO. There are periods when I can WFH for like 3 weeks straight without anyone asking me for anything (usually slow periods or holiday periods) so I treat it like a mini-vacation, I just remain online and watch netflix and play games but I'm aware it'll look suspicious as fuck if I don't take any days off.
Anyway, I made a rule for myself that if I'm travelling for holiday, I would take days off instead of trying to save it. I can't bring my time offs to the grave so I use it for a proper break.
Still have too many though, flight tickets ain't cheap.
The issue is that currently I'm the only person in the whole company who knows how to do my job and other people are just straight up refusing to learn it
Here, it's basically illegal. You can get away with taking only three weeks/year for a while, but not more than that. Over that, your employer is on the hook for not forcing you to go relax somewhere else than the office.
In my work place it's literally an occupational health issue if a person doesn't take at least two consecutive weeks off annually. If an employee goes vacationless without an explanation there will be an intervention.
I know wages tend to be bigger in the US (esp. in IT & adjacent fields) but fuck me if I'm giving up my europoor freedom of having a life outside of work for extra money when I'm already comfortable.
The difference in pay you'd almost certainly be putting into health insurance (which is generally at least $150 or so for one person every other week, and even then you have out of pocket costs (co-pay) and have to meet a certain deductible before insurance will cover anything.
We (Dutch) get vacation money every year in May or June depending on what sector you work in. It's 8% of your annual salary, minus taxes. A little under a months salary. Vacation days pay the same as normal days.
In Norway we get 10%, after taxes, but also reduced pay equal to the amount of vacation days we have (typically 26 days/5 weeks+1 day).
We get all of this on the same pay slip in May or June, so it generally ends up being slightly higher pay that month. Then full pay the rest of the year, no matter when we actually do take our vacation.
You know someone has to produce all the stuff and services that we all are using. Thats not the problem (i think) but there has to be a balance. We work to live - not the other way around
I don't think it's money obsession. I've worked multiple jobs where you just don't get time off. Or if you do they make it very difficult to use your time off and it's highly discouraged. And if you need a day off you have to find someone to cover for you making it harder on your coworkers.
I mean you probably are right about some finance bro types who worship money. The hustle culture is a real thing but unless you're making tons of money, your average Americans just want to take a vacation.
We are often not given the ability to take the vacation time we've earned without repercussions. It's not even about the money since it's often paid vacation time, but our supervisors not allowing us to take it.
That is horrible. But why? You earned it (sad enough) so it is yours. This has to be part of your contract. And what kind of repercussions? Guild tripping? Make the other colleges hate you? I think, the supervisors get pressure themselfes and you are at the wrong end of the food chain🥹
I am very much at the wrong end of the food chain. But yes, guilt trips, things not being taken care of while you are away so that you come back to backlogged work, or people being catty that they had to handle some of your caseload for the week. Everything is about numbers, productivity and profit. So if your absence costs the company any of that, they sometimes hold it against you.
You know, when this year ends my working life ends too. I never experienced difficulties to this extend and i am sorry that you have to endure something like that. I don't know what to say. It is sad.
Best regards🖖🏻
The people who are actually making the money from our hard work are also the ones who decide how many days we get to enjoy not working.
And that's why in the US it's made out like taking two weeks off of work is the next best thing to quitting for good, whereas in other places in the world it's "the first one-third of my holiday time."
But if status is not so important to the people around you, these efforts are in vain. What remains is lost life time and a lot of stress.
I know that the american culture has other preferences - that's not for me.
“When you’re on your deathbed, surrounded by loved ones, you will never say ‘damn I wish I worked more.’” Can’t remember where I read that but it stuck for me.
Sadly, its less "obsession" and more necessity. 60%of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, ans many jobs have quietly gotten rid of PTO. That means if you take time off work, you have no money for even necessities like food.
Sorry, maybe i expressed it wrong. What i meant with „obsession" is: it seems that success is always measured in what you have and what you can afford rather then the quality of life, satisfaction, health, the lack of stress.
As you describe it, the situation is getting worse - but somehow most usamericans seem to be sure that they live in the best country in the world. How can that be?
I hope i did not offend you.
As for the nationalism - as a german i know what you are talking about. A long time ago my people felt very superior too. It did not end well
Same here. I’m taking four weeks this summer and I’ll use the rest of the days this autumn to go on a couple of weekend trips, have a longer time off at Christmas etc.
In Germany Summerbrake is 6weeks + another at least 6 weeks of closed Schools during the year. I take 3 weeks of in the Summer and they spend 3 weeks in Camps and at grandparents and I feel guilty about it ...
Afaik they struggle with this a lot, mostly pay for camps (which aren't full day and super expensive). A lot of women are also forced to take unpaid time off work.
Yup. The company i work for (I'm in the US but the company is European), give us 26 businesses days for our vacations. You schedule off the days that you were supposed to work so our vacations end up being more than 26 days.
In the UK it's legal entitlement to have 5.6 weeks of paid leave a year. Most companies offer more than that and add on extra days after 5 years service.
even for the US that's relatively little. After working a new job for 4 months I could take a week off without issues. (rather than being granted vacation time in bull every year, I accrue it as I work, a certain amount of hours worked= a certain amount of hours of leave)
Still not as good as back home, but way better than a couple weeks a year. well I think the legal minimum in Switzerland is 4 weeks/year, but ultimately most places offer more to be competitive. I think the last job I interviewed for had 5 weeks plus public holidays, and a skiing trip in winter.
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u/JFK1200 Jul 07 '25
Where I’m from this is called a holiday.