I don't have a formal quantity of sick leave at my job. The department admin keeps track of how much sick time you request, and if you aren't providing doctor's notes and take seven days in a "twelve-month rolling calendar period," the boss Has Words With You. I've gone to the doctor for the flu and food poisoning since, even knowing that all I'd get told is "Rest and fluids," just so I could submit evidence I wasn't slacking.

Vacation pay is 2 weeks/year until employed more than five years. Then it's 3 weeks/year until 15 years of service, where it jumps to four. We have a "use it or lose it" policy on that time. We also get three personal holidays a year most years. We got four this year because they declared New Year's Eve 2004 a 2005 holiday and had to make up the calendrical policy to us all somehow.

Why do you keep calling it winning, and lottery?

I actually edited the post to make it include the word lottery, to make sure I was still talking about what we were talking about. I definitely don't in general think people who have three jobs are lucky -- more like crazy, at least the ones I have met. They never talk about being in debt so it just seems like they like working way too much. The ones who have to work three jobs are screwed -- though still better off than if they couldn't get jobs.

I'm not really an American exceptionalist in my brain, either, but I am in my culture. Bush's attitude about this being the greatest country in the world, built on hard work, is a religious view I no longer subscribe to -- but I can still get caught up singing my favorite hymns, and I can appreciate those who keep the faith.

They never talk about being in debt so it just seems like they like working way too much.

Most people don't. Debt's a dirty little secret in most people's closets.

I definitely don't in general think people who have three jobs are lucky -- more like crazy, at least the ones I have met.

Crazy how? Because they want to make ends meet and three jobs is the only way?

They never talk about being in debt so it just seems like they like working way too much.

In my experience, people who are truly poor, in the below-the-poverty-line sense, don't talk about it. I can't think of anyone who would work 3 jobs for the fun of it.

The building I work in is hosting the LA chambers of commerce's big annual dinner. They set up a really nice tented area in the outdoor plaza in front, complete with carpeting, a sound system, and special lighting.

It's been raining.

Hard.

Science fiction writer Jack L. Chalker died today after a long illness.

That's a shame. I really liked his Dancing Gods books.

I am rendered constantly agog with each revelation that this administration is, well, evil.

I have a hard time convincing people that this administration is not just "politics as usual" nor a "typical Republican administration." The Bush administration is a radical departure from the way politics has been practiced for the last century or so, from their obsession with secrecy to their contempt for any sort of congressional oversight to a mile long list of other stuff. This should be of concern to conservatives too, and to people who think that giving unlimited power to the executive branch is a bad thing.

Maybe it will stop, Lee.

I've met people that I think are crazy for working too hard--but they're usually career track people who make good money in just one job, and are so driven that they all but live at the office, and not just for the occasional crunch time.

Then again, when the muse is upon me I can be hella driven, focused, and hard-working myself, so maybe all those people just love being consultants or directors of development or whatever, and I assume they're all about the money and prestige and workaholism because I think their jobs are boring.

But that's a digression. IME, people who work more than one job are doing it out of necessity to make ends meet (with the rare exception of people working in one field to pay the bills while building enough experience in a new field to transition into it or because it's a passion that won't quite pay the rent), and the jobs are of the soul-sucking and low-paying variety.

I don't have the answers. But I do know it's messed up, and I can't see a single mother working three jobs as something that ought to be praised as a wonderful example of work ethic in action. It horrifies me, to think of living a life with no time for family, no time for friends, no time to curl up with a book and just be.

Maybe it will stop, Lee.

Too late.

Did I mention the carpeting laid out on the ground of the outdoor plaza?