Gen Z Woman Sums Up Reality of Workers' Vacation Time in Hilarious Clip

A content creator's take on the difference between the working culture in the United States and United Kingdom has been cheered online, with viewers praising Andrea Celeste for the precision in her satirical presentation of the office culture clash.

Celeste's viral video, which has been viewed more than 840,000 times since it was first shared to Instagram on January 31, poked fun at the disparity between an average U.K employee's length of holiday leave and that of their U.S. counterpart.

As of 2023, the average U.S. worker got 11 days worth of paid vacation leave, while in the U.K that figure sat between 25 and 28. Newsweek spoke with 27-year-old Celeste about her motivation to produce the viral clip and what she makes of the response it has gotten.

"I graduated high school early and started working multiple jobs in Orange County when I was 17 to be able to afford my dream of moving to England to study psychology," Celeste told Newsweek. "In 2015, I moved to the U.K after being given an offer to study Applied Psychology at the University of Leicester. After university, I worked as an administrative coordinator at the international code council in California, but after being in the U.K for some time I had noticed a lot of significant differences between our cultures."

"I started posting videos about this for fun but also because I was so intrigued by the difference in mannerisms and general outlook on things like work-life balance," Celeste added, who now splits her time between her native Los Angeles and London.

Celeste's viral video, which she posted to her 133,000 following on Instagram, comedically mimicked how employees act when logging back onto their work laptops after returning from vacation.

Celeste's U.S. character spent all her time boasting about how she managed to sneak in a few hours of work in the afternoons on her two-day-long break.

The creator then shifts form into a southern English woman—her accent, no doubt something she was able to imitate due to her stay in the U.K—and begins her first day back at work by telling her colleague how she spent her two weeks off "doing nothing."

Celeste had hoped that her upbeat social media clip would hit on narratives around work-life balance, hustle culture and burnout.

"When I posted the first video in this comedy series, I talked about the difference in work culture in the U.S. and U.K. It quickly became clear in the comments section just how many differences there were," she said. "The more I researched this, the more I saw the contrast on all things from maternity and paternity leave to paid sick leave, which I also went on to create videos about."

Celeste added: "I have family that still live and work in California so I would always fact-check with them alongside my research, but I was shocked to see the regulations around paid time off."

Celeste recalls when her husband began working in London, and how much he enjoyed being entitled to 25 days on paid time off per year.

"His manager would also check and make sure that he did take that time off whereas, in the U.S., you almost try not to take your paid time off because it might look bad to your employers," she summed up.

What Do the Comments Say?

Since it had been shared to the social media platform, the Instagram post has been liked by over 8,000 users.

One user asked: "Is this really how it is working in America?"

"I do feel for the average American. Their working day is super long generally and so little time off," another added.

"Americans need to learn from this," a third Instagram user wrote.

A fourth user commented: "The reality is, no one works until 6 PM in the U.K. Normal hours are 9-5 P, sometimes 5:30. Poor British employers."

"U.K annual leave for the win," another user commented.

"So you're telling me that America sucks. I know. I'd love to move to Europe," added another.

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Update 2/9/24, 12:58 p.m. ET: This has been updated with additional information.