God Bless Germany!

Okay, so get this. One of the other interns here in Paraguay is from Germany and he was telling me about how he ended up here in Paraguay, etc. Well, I had heard that Germany is an awesome place to work because they have more paid days off of work than any other country in the world...hence the high incidence of spandex and B.O. at our national parks each summer. But I had never heard of anything like this. He works for a consulting firm in Germany. He got a SIX MONTH PAID leave of absence from work so he spent a month in Germany, is spending three months here, and then is going to travel around South America and Europe for another two months and then go back to work...I guess if he feels like it. And not only are they paying him full salary as if he were working, but they rented him a car down here in Paraguay...for THREE months (wonder what that costs). They are also paying his cost of being here because I guess it is humanitarian work or something and he used his frequent flyer miles from his business flights to fly himself down here first class. So basically he is spending next to nothing and is making money. Oh, and the internship he's doing has nothing to do with his job. He's just doing this whole thing so that he can learn Spanish because I guess knowing German, English, Italian, and French isn't enough. After he told me all this I was like, "What the...?" and he responded "Well, I have worked for them for two and a half years I guess they felt they owed me the leave of absence." TWO AND A HALF YEARS...! What the...?

So I have worked for my company for FOUR long years and here's what I got... I was reluctantly given a SEVEN WEEK leave of absence which will cause everyone I work with to despise me due to the fact that we are chronically short staffed. So I'll totally be the black sheep when I get back. I had to drive back and forth between Utah and Idaho three times in the month of June so that I could work some days in June as well as use all my PTO time so that I wouldn't be taking such a long leave of absence. Oh yeah, and I have no home in Utah and so I had to commute from my aunt's house in Provo which was a big pain and very costly. Between paying the gas to get to Utah and then commuting back and forth between Provo and SLC it was hardly worth it financially to work. I was just doing it so they would give me the leave of absence. Also having taken a leave of absence will probably be a permanent black mark against me...I might as well forget about getting a decent raise ever again.

Anyway, I'm not complaining or anything...I mean how many companies in the US would even give you a seven week leave of absence so you could go to South America and would hold your job for you? Probably not a ton of them. Luckily though this leave was mostly to work on my Practicum for my Graduate Degree so I guess they felt inclined to give it to me because of that. So I am grateful that although reluctantly and most likely with permanent damage to my reputation I was given a leave. So don't leave me comments telling me to be grateful for what I have...I am grateful. I'm not trying to complain, I'm just trying to say, "Come on America, let's get with the Germans on this taking time off of work and not killing ourselves for jobs that we don't care about. Let's work a lot and relax a lot." I mean the Germans were way off on that whole Nazi thing but they are right on with the vacation time thing. Go Germany!

Disclaimer: Neither of the two Germans interns here wear spandex or have B.O. and they are really nice and stuff. Also I really do love America (mostly Idaho) for most things.