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Comment by acd | Hacker News Reader

Both Japan and US/Vacation should have more yearly vacation at least 4-5 weeks. I think it would be very beneficial to general mental health. Also to have less exposure to advertisement which recently has also shown to have a negative effect on health - https://hbr.org/2020/01/advertising-makes-us-unhappy.

It used to be in Japan that you would not leave the office before your manager left whatever time that was.

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The issue in Japan is that even if you have (say) 3 weeks of vacation, it's considered bad form to actually use more than a few days.

This is one reason why Japan has so many public holidays: it's a way to legally enforce that most salarymen get some time off.

My job gives me enough leave that if I timed it with certain holiday breaks we get I could be off for well over a month. My wife's job gives her seven days of vacation total.

"My wife's job gives her seven days of vacation total."

That's just nuts. I had 15 for a while and it felt to me like I could never get a break and life was just a never ending string of work.

15 is three whole weeks, not so bad. At some point my brainwashing was complete, now I'm on a race to accumulate maximum wealth before retirement. I spend a lot of my days off doing things that will increase earnings.

> It used to be in Japan that you would not leave the office before your manager left whatever time that was.

"used to be"? has this changed? I thought this was still the case in the older salary-men type companies.

My sister-in-law works in a tiny company doing graphic design. It's the same thing. Can't leave until the boss does.

She recently came to visit us in my home country for Christmas whereupon I learned that she has a 2 hour commute each way on purpose because of this. I asked her isn't commuting 4 hours a day just awful, why don't you live closer to work? And she replied that if she lived closer to work she would simply be at work longer and having a long commute means 4 hours a day she can spend not doing work stuff but doing things like listening to music and playing games on her phone.

I think my manager feels bad about leaving the office if I’m still inside, but that’s more like the opposite.

Used to be?

Still is.

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