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Slovenia’s public holidays in 2007. (Bigger and better version)
You may have noticed already, but Slovenian workers will hit the jackpot in 2007: All public holidays this year fall on weekdays. (See this table for the glorious details) Slovenia has precisely 13 public holidays. According to this page, that puts it in the same league as Austria, but behind such holiday heavyweights as Italy (16) and Iceland (15). However, bear in mind that the list doesn’t include eastern Europe, so it neglects to mention Bosnia, which boasts a heroic 17 public holidays per annum.
Also keep in mind that this is in addition to the weeks of paid free time most Europeans get. In my experience, many Slovenes don’t know how unusual this is. Americans get an average of 9 days of vacation after their first year of work — and even then it’s a question of if they’ll actually take it. Many don’t. If you want to get ahead, you definitely don’t.
For example, my father took about three family vacations during his entire career. That’s how many I took last year alone. By law, Slovenes get a certain amount of government-guaranteed vacation every year. The number depends on a number of factors: like how many years you’ve been working, children, etc… but it’s set, and people actually take it. I didn’t at first, because of residual guilt, but now I’m slowly going native.
And I likes it.
(Thanks Dejan!)
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You did not mention that on the other hand there are years when 6 of this 13 hollydays can fall on weekend days. And then the score is a little different. So its realy a jackpot year!
Btw. your clock is one hour ahead.
…as opposed to 2005 when almost all holidays fell on weekends… That sucked…
“Americans get an average of 9 days of vacation after their first year of work — and even then it’s a question of if they’ll actually take it.”
It’s new to me. I always thought this was true for Japanese … Michael, I am glad you are going native.
The European COmmission has 19 so-called “office closing days” - and I have an additional 25 days of vacation, giving me a grand total of..of.. 44 days. No guilty feelings whatsoever, I’m afraid.
In Germany, one can have as many as 95 days of paid work-free time this year! This is due to the many “bridge-days” between a public holiday and the following Saturday that are in most cases “office closing days”, meaning one just has to take all these vacations…
Still: I have never managed to enjoy all the privileges of living in a vacation paradise: two vacations last year were a real luxury…
And they say EU is bad….
Poulette,
If you have 44 vacation days a year, that means that you can work 4 days a week from January through October.
Dejan, who said anything about people working at EU commission.
I just couldn’t resist it
How coincidental (although I don’t believe in coincidences) that you happen to post this on the day I was sorting out my days off for this year. Having changed jobs, from part time to fulltime, made me end up with just ten (we get 20 vacation days, but mine are cut in half, for having worked half time last year), but since I’ve gone musician/producer/corporate IT now - and the latter is what gets me days off - and we work one hour more than the 38 required of us (sans the music and production stuff, of course), it gets us 6 recuperation days throughout the year. But, since I’m sourced to another company where I choose to work 40 hours (yes, I made that deliberate choice), I get another 6 recuperation days, which means I now have 22 possible days off at my disposal. Next year, just out of the box, and working one hour less, I’ll have a nifty 27, plus all the official holidays, equaling a meager 9, gives me a total of 36. Nowhere near dear Poulette, of course - even though she’s just a couple of kms away, it still means a huge difference in days off. And Poulette, you’re not afraid, you’re just happy and reveling in the joy of having that luxury
Davor: I think I fixed the clock, I think. Thanks!
Matej: I also thought that the Japanese were leading the way when it came to working oneself to the bone, but according to the PBS link Americans work two additional weeks a year.
Also, as soon as I figure out how to build a passable Poulette costume, I am so taking her place in Brussels. Until then, I’ll have to content myself with my meager 24 days of vacation. (Public holidays don’t count for me, unfortunately.)
Don’t feel sorry for yourself too much
I’ve had a grand total of 14 days of vacation in the last four years… 
Wehn I lived in Portugal we used “fazer um ponte” (as alcesser said above) so that you wouldn’t go to work on a Friday if teh holiday was on a Thursday and on Tuesday if it was on Tuesday.
I could never work out if this was officially-sanctioned or not. In my workplace we weren’t allowed to do it but hardly any of the ancillary staff turned up and the place was very quiet.
And I never want to loive in a country where people have to give up their already meagre amounts of holiday to “get ahead”. Yeah - get ahead to an early grave.
I wasn’t on a vacation since 1995…I have even worked on the New Year’s Eve … and today on Sunday…
And they say Americans are immune to socialism.
Not me, Bojan. I got the fever. The red fever!