Simple Pleasures.

[balthazar]

A good fire on a very pleasant spring evening.

[FreakyBoy]

My A/C has finally been hooked up.

[Kajin]

Awesome. A/C is most definitely NOT a luxury in warm climates.

[Jorodryn]

Selling miniatures that have apparently achieved collectible status. Averaging $30 a piece for items I paid about 6 bucks each for when originally purchased. I have 50 of them that hopefully will net me $1500.

[Solara Hanover]

Being right. I've had a coworker out the last week due to wrist surgery. She usually works the 5-130 shift, I work it when she's not there. Her doctor told her to take three weeks off post surgery, but she didn't want to use all her vacation (we have to use any available vacation before we get sick pay). I told my boss before I left work on Monday that she'd be complaining by 8 am today (her first day back) about being at work and in pain, etc. I got a phone call from the boss at 10:10 this morning asking me to work the 5 ams the rest of the week. Boo Yah!!!

[Jorodryn]

You have to use vacation before using sick time? Isn't their a law against that?

[FreakyBoy]

There are very few laws regulating sick/vacation days, because there are no national allotments of sick/vacation days. In almost every instance, paid time off is a company perk, not a legal mandate.

(Unpaid time off is somewhat different.)

[kaclickpoing]

In Israel if you have a doctors note then it is sick leave. If you do not then it is vacation days. If you do not have permission for vacation days you get shafted

[Ruan]

Awesome. A/C is most definitely NOT a luxury in warm climates.

Not necessarily a luxury even in cool ones... my trip to England/Ireland/Scotland many years back came right during the middle of a heat wave. Most places we went didn't have air conditioning at all, including the hotels. Most of the time by nightfall it cooled off enough that I could sleep, but there were a few days that I was stuck up most of the night unable to get to sleep because it was too hot in the room, even with the little fan I brought blowing as hard as a little fan could. There was at least one day where our choice of where to go for food was dictated by the fact we saw in big letters 'air conditioning here' on the window of the restaurant.

[Kajin]

I just spent $400 on a thousand dollar television.

[caffeine]

Awesome. A/C is most definitely NOT a luxury in warm climates.

Not necessarily a luxury even in cool ones... my trip to England/Ireland/Scotland many years back came right during the middle of a heat wave. Most places we went didn't have air conditioning at all, including the hotels. Most of the time by nightfall it cooled off enough that I could sleep, but there were a few days that I was stuck up most of the night unable to get to sleep because it was too hot in the room, even with the little fan I brought blowing as hard as a little fan could. There was at least one day where our choice of where to go for food was dictated by the fact we saw in big letters 'air conditioning here' on the window of the restaurant.

If you think that 'I was uncomfortable without it' means 'it's not a luxury', then I think you need to look up the definition of 'luxury'.

[CCC]

There are very few laws regulating sick/vacation days, because there are no national allotments of sick/vacation days. In almost every instance, paid time off is a company perk, not a legal mandate.

There is a national allotment of sick-leave days here. Official page with details. In short, six weeks in every three-year period, minimum. (Employers are allowed to require a doctor's note). There are a few exceptions.

Labour unions have a lot of political clout here, so you get rules like this.

[Kajin]

If you think that 'I was uncomfortable without it' means 'it's not a luxury', then I think you need to look up the definition of 'luxury'.

Heating and A/C are most definitely NOT luxuries. It's entirely possible to be hospitalized or even die from heat sickness. Children and the elderly are especially susceptible.

[FreakyBoy]

Once your discomfort starts making you lose sleep (chronically, mind, not just one night), the ease of your discomfort ceases to be mere luxury, I would say.

[Ruan]

Discovering that there's a ctually a term for being exposed to bright light (such as walking out into a bright day) and sneezing, as well as the fact that there's a decent bit of the world's population that it happens to.