<story><title>Vacations in the Soviet Union</title><url>https://daily.jstor.org/workers-of-the-world-take-pto/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>boveus</author><text>&amp;gt;It encouraged workers to vacation with groups of relative strangers as opposed to their friends and families.&lt;p&gt;This can actually work out well.  I experienced something similar in the US while on vacation.  I was traveling with someone from Glenwood Springs, CO to Denver, CO via Amtrak.  We went to the dining car for lunch an since there were two of us and space is at a premium, the Amtrak policy was to seat us with one or two random strangers.  We sat and had lunch with an oil executive and someone&amp;#x27;s grandmother and it was quite an interesting experience and we got to meet two strangers.  It was actually a highlight of that train trip.&lt;p&gt;I feel like the experience of having unplanned social interactions with strangers is often missing in modern American life.  I don&amp;#x27;t know if the Soviet style of assigning vacation groups via a worker&amp;#x27;s committee would be pleasant, but I can&amp;#x27;t help but think things would be better if we had more situations where we are &amp;quot;forced&amp;quot; to engage with strangers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ActorNightly</author><text>This is a very good idea for teenagers and younger adults to break them out of the online world.&lt;p&gt;For working class though, its probably best not to force people to socialize. The thing that doesn&amp;#x27;t get talked enough about in socialization is that its not all positive, and people have different tolerance to each others bullshit.</text></comment>
<story><title>Vacations in the Soviet Union</title><url>https://daily.jstor.org/workers-of-the-world-take-pto/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>boveus</author><text>&amp;gt;It encouraged workers to vacation with groups of relative strangers as opposed to their friends and families.&lt;p&gt;This can actually work out well.  I experienced something similar in the US while on vacation.  I was traveling with someone from Glenwood Springs, CO to Denver, CO via Amtrak.  We went to the dining car for lunch an since there were two of us and space is at a premium, the Amtrak policy was to seat us with one or two random strangers.  We sat and had lunch with an oil executive and someone&amp;#x27;s grandmother and it was quite an interesting experience and we got to meet two strangers.  It was actually a highlight of that train trip.&lt;p&gt;I feel like the experience of having unplanned social interactions with strangers is often missing in modern American life.  I don&amp;#x27;t know if the Soviet style of assigning vacation groups via a worker&amp;#x27;s committee would be pleasant, but I can&amp;#x27;t help but think things would be better if we had more situations where we are &amp;quot;forced&amp;quot; to engage with strangers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jedberg</author><text>I really like it too.  It happens more often than you think.&lt;p&gt;My wife and I went on a cruise once when we were still dating, and it was one of the ones where they assign you a table to eat.  Since we were a young couple, they assumed we were newlyweds and seated us with a bunch of other newlyweds.  It was fun to hear all their stories (one was a Mormon couple who had just had a very traditional Mormon wedding for example).  Then 1&amp;#x2F;2 way through the cruise they switched it up and we ended up at a table with a large family from rural Oregon, who were sad at the lack of meat on the menu.  Normally at home they would sit on the back porch with rifles and shoot animals that would walk by and then eat them.  Which was just a really interesting thing to learn about, given that we had always been city folk.&lt;p&gt;And on another trip we stayed at a small place in Costa Rica that offered local tours each day as a planned activity.  We ended up touring with a bunch of other Americans that were staying at the same place.  Connected with them on Facebook and we&amp;#x27;re all still connected to this day, occasionally commenting on each other&amp;#x27;s posts.&lt;p&gt;In fact two of them were a young couple like us who were just dating and also traveling with their parents.  We both ended up having kids around the same time and have even met up with them when we were in their home town.</text></comment>