From AlterNet.

August 31 is typically the end of Europe’s holiday season, that Great Migration of the continent’s leathery bourgeoisie to southern shores. For Europeans, the August vacation isn’t a privilege but a secular-humanist right, a major premise for a civilized and dignified life. This assumption about the August holiday goes well beyond the EU’s borders, to poorer, struggling societies in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia.

Not so in America. For us, August conjures up no particular feelings of anticipation or relief. If August means anything to us, it’s heat. Not the European heat: the this-is-perfect-Speedo-weather type of heat; but rather the dreadfully familiar how-will-I-hide-my-sweat-stains-around-my-armpits-at-the-office heat.

The reason why August has so little meaning to American workers is because Americans don’t take vacations any more. According to a Conference Board poll taken in May, 40% of Americans had no plans to take any sort of summer vacation this year — the worst showing in the poll’s 28 years.

Read the rest @ http://www.alternet.org/workplace/41404/

You know what, this trend is going to start to effect us as pastors and church leaders.  I know of one church that, the same year it did not give raises to any of the staff, is decreasing the staff’s ability to take vacation time.  Morale has got to be great there!