Go South, Young Man

Horace Greeley notwithstanding, employment today is better in the South than in any other part of the country...at least in one aspect (well, TWO, if you don't like snow).

A recent survey of 522 full-time workers conducted by Adecco Group North America found some interesting job-related information, and in the area of vacation packages, the workers in the South are far ahead of the rest of us (somewhat like the SEC in football).

At issue is the number of days workers get for vacation and how often they lie about being sick to get another free day. While none of the results were particularly startling, it is somewhat amazing that people are willing to prevaricate just to get out of working without realizing how their coworkers feel about their absence.

The researchers found that fully 44% of those questioned had called in absent utilizing a lie. Jury duty was the top reason workers used to get out of their daily toil: 27% of those surveyed indicated that they had used this excuse. Legal issues were used only slightly more often than deaths int he family, a lie that was featured by 26% of the respondents. Obviously, people close to us die, but, for some reason, there's always a bit of suspicion among coworkers and bosses when this happens. Nearly fifty percent of those responding indicated that they were unhappy about fellow employees being gone...mostly because the absence caused more work for them. This fact is important because almost 75% of respondents felt that the ones absent were faking it a majority of the time!

It's also not surprising that men were twice as likely as women to use the bereavement gambit and four times as likely as women to use the jury duty ploy. Perhaps there are just that many more men in the workforce...or perhaps, men are just bigger slackers. At any rate, there was wide diversity in the amount of satisfaction full-time workers felt for their vacation compensation.

Forty-three percent of workers surveyed in the South felt perfectly satisfied with their vacation packages, but the numbers dropped off dramatically as the rest of the country weighed in: only 23% of workers in the Northeast were satisfied, and a paltry 15% of folks toiling in the West liked what they had.

Of course, using sick and vacation days as the only criteria for job satisfaction is a bit simplistic, but I think it matters more to people who have "jobs" as opposed to those who have "careers." I've had both, and, although a career definitely has days in which one would rather not be there, the attachment is different.

...and I like snow.