I could rant for quite a while about how corporations in the U.S. have rearranged families, and how two weeks of vacation time is just enough to spend time with both sides of a family. I could keep going on about how the value of benefits in the U.S. has consistently decreased over the decades, and all the while corporations are patting themselves on the back for controlling costs and continuing to provide “greater cost-conscious employee programs”.
Fortunately, it’s not one of those nights. Also, I currently live near my family and actually get to use some of my vacation time for vacation. Some of it, at least. I also feel weird writing these workplace strips as it is. Since we’re in the middle of something that feels like a crushing recession to the average Joe, I feel like these stories aren’t really in touch with the current state of the U.S. (which is where I live and where I base my comic). I don’t want to go in to that in the comic, though, because I want it to be an escape from all that. I don’t want you to come to the comic and be reminded of how bad things are out there. Honestly, then I wouldn’t have much to separate me from, say, CNN.com. Well, that and the lack of celebrity gossip on my site.
This upcoming story, to me, is more about the general attitude of corporations in the U.S. towards their employees and how it has changed in the past six decades. I’ll see how it comes across to y’all, since I have to keep things very streamlined for the medium. Suffice it to say, this is not based on my real-life experience with vacation time but is more a piece of social commentary. It is my opinion that corporations despise their employees and would see them all fired if it weren’t for the fact that someone has to do the actual work that keeps a company afloat.
I’d also like to point out that it was a lot more fun to crack jokes at Canada’s expense when the Canadian dollar was well below the U.S. dollar. Now that we’re roughly at parity, and for a while were on the down side, I kind of feel that in some ways the U.S. has earned a spot as the Newfoundland of Canadian jokes.