Brilliant Idea of the Week: "Heartbreak Leave"

Have you ever had a breakup that was so rough, you wondered how the heck you were going to get out of bed the next morning, let alone make it to the office? Oh, who are we kidding...everyone's had that kind of breakup. And if you haven't, then you must be the a**whole who's breaking everyone else's heart and you've got the mother of all breakups heading your way soon (breakup karma's a b*tch). Anyway, we've often wondered what the annual impact on the economy is of all this heartache.

Seriously, a bad dumping can make you unproductive for months on end--sure, you put in your nine to five each day, but you spend the majority of your working hours stalking your ex via Facebook, making teary phone calls to your BFF, or hiding in the bathroom stall crying into roll upon roll of company T.P. Well, a Japanese company has come up with a brilliant (or at least compassionate) policy: heartbreak leave...

The idea is, employees get time off for being pregnant or being sick or mourning the death of a loved one, so why shouldn't they get time off for being heartsick? But there are two major flaws in their policy: Firstly, the older you are, the more days off you get. So if your heart gets put through the blender in your early 20s, you only score a one day break, whereas if it happens in your 30s, you get a whole three days off. But what's more dramatic or life-altering or productivity-lowering than a severe breakup in your 20s? And secondly, in this policy, dumpers and dumpees get equal time off. Puh-lease. There are pitifully few benefits to being the dumpee in this world...we think this is one area where the dumpers should have to suck it up and punch the clock.

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