Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for December 01, 2019

Sounds like a painful birth.

Well, get your a$$ to France. I might go with you.

I see Rat’s ideas led him right back to work. So much for innovation.

Rat successfully negotiated a global compensation package: Finnish 25 paid vacation days and 11 paid holidays; and now gets the Venezuelans minimum wage of $20 USD per month.

Rat wants the same benefits as a broad? I thought women typically received less compensation.

Rat’s second calling should be union boss.

This is one of the few times where I do completely side with Rat.

“We’re #1! We’re #1!”

I’m sure in none of those countries they allow a rat to infest thier cafes. You’re lucky you’re not fired, Rat.

It’s the Americans who are absurd…

Eight weeks!!!…they’re going to need retraining when they get back.

No, we spread them around. 4 in summer, 2 for Christmas and one each for Ski and Easter.

Very sneaky Stephan Pastis! Better watch your six because if you do that again, your strip will get the “deep six” with me!

Boss: “You know what I think about your Global Economy? I don’t Caribbean. You’re a Spain in the neck, that’s Norway to behave. Samoa your wisecracks and I’ll Kenya. Now get Eurasia down here.”

When Elon Musk thinks we will work the same hours and days in the Berlin car-plant as the americans do in the other Tesla factories. Then he will be corrected.

Nice try, Rat.

Rat is on to something. I am a Dane and a standard work week here is 37 hours, at my job this includes a ½ hour paid lunchtime each day so it is really 34½ hour work weeks.And the rap is that when it comes to productivity we are not producing less than elsewhere, we are even starting to see companies that experiment with 4 day work weeks – people stay a little longer on those days only not so much it means they still do the 37 hour weeks.

Rat check your 10-20 you are on the wrong side of the pond to receive those hand-outs ;-) ….. Croc Power !

In Iceland we get 30 work days paid summer vacation, ten full days for public holidays, two half days for public holidays and up to 360 (including weekends) paid days of sick leave (depending on how long you’ve worked at a given place). If you’re still not well after you finish your sick days, you get the same number of days without pay from your employer, but the union pays you the same amount, and your employer can’t fire you until those days are over. If you’re still not well after nearly two years, the national insurance system takes over.

And believe it or not, our economy is doing well and growing.

I’m with, Rat, on this one

At this level of job, it’s simpler just to fire Rat and find someone else who will actually show up (and not insult the customers).

Yes, I know, there’s some history here about why they supposedly “can’t” fire him, but I think it just became possible.

I’D like the benefits of ABROAD!

RAT is just that!

Sorry Rat, your idea was stillborn.

“Since I gave birth to this idea” – that was fantastic.

Pig.

Sorry, Rat. Now you know why money is allowed to flow across borders, but people aren’t.

And I thought euthanasia was young people abroad…..

….Those maudit Chicago boys !

Well, Rat, if you want to be just like workers in other countries, remember that Chinese workers live in dorm rooms in their factory.

If Rat works in a global economy, he can pick his time zone.

Labor studies concluded American workers are >90% more productive than 50 or 60 years ago. However, adjusted for inflation and cost of living, they’re earning ~50% less. That means they’re working about twice as hard for approximately half as much. yea… joy… yippee…

The Finns? I heard when they finish, they wipe their #$$ with U.S.A. dollars.

Sounds about right, no wonder Americans die from heart disease, high anxiety and suicide by working themselves to death.

Still wondering how a rat got a job in the food industry without the health inspector catching on.

I notice there was no reference to the Chinese….

We Americans are being over worked and under paid. We are woefully far behind European and Scandinavian countries when it comes to quality of life. Too little vacation and sick time. No universal healthcare, our maternity leave benefits are too short and often unpaid. Is it any wonder we are not even in the top ten of happiest countries?

Oh well, you can have 365 days leave now!! remember how good it was when you had a job!!!

I work for a company owned by the French. We (the US group) get the fewest holidays of the entire organization. There are also three groups in three different French cities. The one where the CEO’s original company resides has the most holidays of all groups…go figure.

I love your idea.

That Rat is a rat.

Bring back the Rat clones. The boss prefered the Rat clones. They were hard workers, nice, friendly, and good with the customers. Everything Rat isn’t.

Kramer ought to be coming in any moment for his free espresso…

I like this idea of yours, Rat.

If only we could threaten to go to these countries and find employment, then we could dangle the threat. But it is not feasible so we workers have no leverage.

If you like the ways they do things so much, Rat, go live in Finland, or France, or Sweden. If you wanna stay here, haul butt in to work!

Well that’s a weird idea, proposed by Rat: companies that care for their employees. Outlandish.