If you’d like more time off to catch up on chores, get more sleep or spend quality time with the family and if you believe in reincarnation here’s a plan:

In your  next life, run for public office. Specifically, as a representative in the U.S. House or for senator from your state.  Or any one that has an opening that will have you.  Carpetbagging is no longer considered boorish behavior.

Studies from all over the world show that as far as time put in, hours worked, that  Americans work more than citizens of just about any other nation. Unless it’s one of those places where nobody does much of anything.

About one in four American workers don’t get any vacation time, period.

Nearly all of those who do get paid vacations get less than two weeks. And even then they  don’t take all their time, and in many cases, they lose unused vacation or sick leave time at the end of each year.  Solution: Either accept it, change your ways or run for Congress.

Working for a place that makes the rules has many rewards.  One of them is the unofficial TWT Club, which, more often than not, is how Congress operates.  TWT stands for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, which, for many elected officials, is the normal work week.  Mondays and Fridays are often used for commuting purposes so that members can return home to tell constitutes how hard they work when they are here, and what a mess Washington was before they got here and cleaned it up.  Up to a point …

Since Congress makes the rules — hence the term “lawmakers” — it can and does label things to suit its tastes.  Members of the House don’t take vacations or time off.  When they are off, which is often, that is called District Work Period time.  The Senate, which strives to be classier, calls its time outs State Work Periods to represent the broader statewide (as opposed to congressional district) constituency  they serve, when they are not on break.

At the start of the legislative year, Jan. 6, if you are in Congress, the Senate’s tentative schedule called for time off (that is a State Work Period) From Feb. 16-20; March 30 to April 10; May 25-29; June 29-July 6; Aug. 10-Sept. 7; Sept. 14-23; Oct. 12-16; Nov. 23-27 and Dec. 21-31.  Oh, and appropriate holidays in between.

July was an especially tough (as Congress would say “productive”) month.  Officially, the House schedule — including weekends — shows that in addition to weekends it was only off Monday, July 6; Friday, July 17; Monday, July 20; and Friday, July 31. According to the Federal Managers Association, there are only about a dozen working days left between now and Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

While all this time off might make some voters green with envy, there is one group that should enjoy and encourage it.  That would be federal workers and retirees. You.

While they are out of town they can’t touch you.  So enjoy the rest

When Congress is  in town, it is constantly tinkering with, sometimes chopping off, government programs.  Or complaining about rules and regulations mandated by Congress.  So when the 535 leaders are away, feds everywhere can put worries about pay, retirement, their 401k and job security on hold. For awhile.  So …

Enjoy the rest of the summer. And set aside some savings in case there is another government shutdown caused by the fact that Congress might not have enough time to appropriate funds for the next fiscal year.  If there is another shutdown  you can spend the time monitoring your various credit cards for fraud.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michael O’Connell

The ampersand (“&”) used to be included in the English alphabet along with the 26 other letters, although it’s actually a “logogram”, which is a symbol that represents a word and not a letter.  Ampersand is a corruption of the phrase “and per se and”, which signifies that “&” intrinsically stands for the word “and”.

Source: Wikipedia

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