Everyone knows that Europeans get weeks and weeks of vacation and the typical American is lucky to get more than two weeks in a year. How did things become the way they are -- and is the gap really that big?

The New York Times' Room for Debate article on this topic make a good read, although it might rely a little too much on anecdotes for some. Here's one quote from the comments that jumped out at me:

I think a lot of American office workers like to brag about how "hard" they work, saying they put in 50 or 60 hours at the office. Think about how much time is wasted on your job. How much time at the office is just surfing the net or pointless meetings? Is a lot of it just facetime? How much more vacation would you have if you could convert your unproductive time into more vacation?

Now, I don't know any magic way to transform unproductive time into vacation time, but getting rid of pointless, empty work seems like a great way to at least free up a few extra minutes for a real break each day. Give it a try the next time you're not on vacation...