Vacation Days

"WHAT IF THEY realize they could do without me?" "What if my boss thinks I'm not giving 110 percent?" "How could I afford it on my budget?" These are just some of the reasons people give for not using their vacation days. The average American worker takes a mere 10.2 days of paid leave, says the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Workers surveyed last month for the travel Web site Expedia.com said they likely would not take three days of allotted vacation time this year, up from two days last year.

Students get awards for good attendance.Carroll Schools Superintendent R. Edward Shilling will get one, too. It amounts to $94,401.That's the sum Mr. Shilling has earned for unused sick days and vacation over his 30 years in Carroll County schools.Good health brings rewards to all Carroll school employees. Over the years, unions have negotiated into their contracts clauses that allow members to get paid for all unused sick days when they retire, at the rate of 50 percent of their salary at retirement.

It appears that the proponents of the concept of mandatory sick leave, including the authors of a recent commentary in The Sun ("Investing in health," Nov. 29), have had no experience in managing staff or managing a business. Starting out as an employee in a consulting firm decades ago, I was informed that I would accrue vacation at a certain rate but was given no specific guidelines on sick leave, except that I should notify my supervisor any day I could not come to work due to illness.

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Most European countries are far more generous than the United States with workers who become sick or disabled. The Netherlands is beginning to realize that it has been generous to a fault.So bountiful are Dutch sickness benefits that DSM, a chemical company in Heerlen, found that 13 percent of its 12,000 workers called in sick on an average day in 1979. So it began giving bonus vacation days to workers who had not been ill in the previous year -- which knocked the absentee rate to below 4 percent but also meant fabulous amounts of vacation for some workers.

IT IS A FREQUENTLY REPORTED statistic in the study of how Americans spend their leisure time. (Yes, people actually have jobs where they study people who are not working.) That is, American workers have fewer vacation days -- only about 14 -- than their counterparts in other industrialized nations, but they don't use them all. According to a recent report in Time magazine, the average American will fail to use about four vacation days. That adds up to about 574 million days a year, Time reported.

Vacations necessaryWorkers who feel guilty about taking vacations shouldn't. In fact, most bosses believe their workers are more productive if they take time off from the day-in, day-out grind, according to a new survey.Indeed, top executives feel they, too, need vacations for the same reasons their employees do: to prevent burnout, increase productivity on the job and improve personal relationships.Out of 500 executives across the United States surveyed by Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels Corp.

Editor's Note: Today Jerdine Nolen gives thanks for family life and the books that commemorate it. We have so many things we are thankful for -- the people and things in our lives that give us joy and make us feel our lives are fulfilling and good. We have each other to look to and care about. We have a world of our own making, and it is good. We have our families. Below is a list of some books you may want to share as a family: * A is for Africa, by Ifeoma Onyefulu * All the Colors of the Race, by Arnold Adoff * Amazing Grace, by Mary Hoffman * Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon, by Paula Danziger * Brown Honey and Broomwheat Tea, by Joyce Carol Thomas * Chester's Way, by Kevin Henkes * Fanny's Dream, by Caralyn Buehner * Hazel's Amazing Mother, by Rosemary Wells * In My Family (En Mi Familia)

WASHINGTON -- Fear has been called the aerobics of the mind. If that is so, all who think there can and should be an entitlement to economic security should tone up their minds by focusing on what is happening in the streets of French cities, and on what has happened on the streets where pickets walked for 17 months outside Caterpillar works in the United States.The future of all unreformed welfare states can be seen through the smoke from fires set by people protesting the French government's ''austerity'' plans, meaning plans to curtail entitlements to public jobs and benefits.

On her 25th birthday, Bonnie S. Biggus took shovel and broom in handand joined the men at the Lehigh Portland Cement Co."I wondered,why work as a waitress or a secretary when I could get dirty and make a lot of money," she said.She was only the third woman hired at the plant. That was 15 years ago.Today, 13 women work there -- five in the plant, six in clerical jobs and two in management.Biggus works from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday in the kiln control room, where the job -- checking the flow of raw material and fuel -- can be hot and dirty.

LONDON - Britta Niehoff is about to join millions of other Europeans on her annual vacation, with the kind of time off and benefits that most Americans only dream of receiving from their employers. Like many Europeans, including part-time workers, Niehoff gets six weeks a year, not the measly two to four with which most Americans must be content. What's more, her employer gives her a bonus of a half-month's pay to help finance her vacation. If that seems generous, the fact is many Europeans get bonuses twice as large.