Have you ever worked on vacation?
Nope?
Don’t lie, I know you have. And it sucks. Really sucks.
You work your ass off to get everything done ahead of time. Putting in those long days and countless hours to make sure that nothing should pop up when you’re away to derail your precious, horded like the very breaths you breathe, vacation days this time.
But low and behold, something happens.
The shit hits the fan when you’re out sipping Pina Coladas in the cabana and all of a sudden, all of those beautiful ladies lounging out by the pool are replaced with that mind-numbing iridescent blue-green glow of your laptop screen. The gigs up and you’re stuck in that hotel room trying to fix a presentation or excel spreadsheet when the rest of your family is out combing the white sand beach with their bare toes and frolicking in the surf.
Sound familiar? Yep. Because it is, way too familiar for our liking.
And this is something that I think every single working American can relate to at some point in their career. That sinking feeling when you realize that the vacation you had been envisioning as your reprieve from the corporate chaos, will not be what you had hoped for.
A vacation should be a time to recharge and unplug.
You know you are not in the right mind-set when you start to dread your vacation because of either the amount of work you are doing to make sure everything will be okay when you are gone, or you’re starting to picture the avalanche of work that will be waiting to bury you upon your return.
I try to pride myself on doing the best I can to manage some semblance of a work/life balance. I try to exercise daily, meditate often (but man I’ve been slipping on this one lately and need to get back on track), practice music and maintain an upbeat mindset – there is more to life than just working mentality – that keeps me grounded and connected with my family.
But in the lead up to my last vacation, I’m disappointed to admit that I severely regressed. And it is scary when this happens. When you lose perspective and digress into a foreign version of yourself that you don’t even recognize.
Because let’s face it. Vacation is a lifeline. You put in blood, sweat equity and tears for those 2, 3 maybe (if you’re very lucky) 4 weeks of PTO. That’s your freedom. That’s what you’ve sacrificed for. And it should be treated as such.
Why don’t we value our vacation like the priceless commodity that it is?
Just before I was about to leave on my trip, my company announced that a new USA president had been appointed replacing our old one out of the blue. Pandemonium erupted. My life turned into paper pushing anarchy – meetings, presentations and deadlines circling around the clock like famished vultures.
And I lost it. Frustration, anger and resentment rushed in like a tidal wave. I was blaming my upcoming vacation for fucking up my work life. If only I had waited longer to schedule it later. Why did I choose to attend this wedding anyway?
WTF? What was I doing? This was my TIME we’re talking about! My gold – the whole reason I’m working in the first place. To get this freedom. To own that precious resource again.
It should have been the opposite. I should have been grateful for my quickly approaching time off and valued my work less. Treating my PTO as the salvation that it is.
But in today’s world, it is so easy to get distracted. I’m a well-grounded person yet in a snap of the fingers I had fallen into the self-righteous trap. And it will only get harder.
Unfortunately, when it comes to balance in the workplace, we are under assault. We constantly have to defend our values in a corporate system that is giving us less and less while at the same time demanding more and more from us.
It’s a vicious cycle.
Our minds need to disconnect.
The important thing about a vacation is it needs to be a break, a solid decoupling of our emotions from our professional life. We need to disconnect.
That’s the purpose of it. How and to what level you achieve this is up to you. But I believe finding a balance with this is critical for mental health.
For myself, I have a personality that tends to worry/obsess about work regardless of whether I’m on vacation or not. I’m always anxious.
So I’ve set up a system that is a compromise for me:
- I do not check emails, unless scenario #2.
- I tell my boss that I will not be checking email at all, but if there is an emergency, call or text me on my cell and I will respond.
Sure, I’m not entirely disconnected, and I’ll be the first to admit that my method is far from perfect, but allowing myself to ignore emails makes me feel like I am away. It’s enough to give my scattered mind the illusion of detachment that I crave.
And telling my boss that I can be contacted in emergencies, is not a negative, but rather gives me a feeling of comfort. If something is so time sensitive that it cannot wait until my return, then I know he will text or call me. I can ignore all of those constant outlook email pop-ups in the meantime (and yes, I should turn off push notifications, but I haven’t made it to that level of control yet… baby steps my friends. The corporate beast still has me in its clutches. Haha.)
One caveat on this though, if your boss is crazy and one of those people that think everything is an emergency (and I know there are a ton of crazy ‘the sky is falling’ managers our there), then obviously this method will not work for you. You have a bigger problem.
You need to find a new job pronto!
Are we improving as a society?
My personal opinion is, no. If anything, we’re trending in the opposite direction.
I hate to be a downer here and try to push a positive perspective for this blog. But I only see it getting worse.
We’re getting all these new gadgets that are supposed to be improving our wellbeing. iPhones have a screen time tracker now and my Outlook email has this new productivity feature that is supposed to limit the emails I receive after hours.
But let’s be honest. They don’t really matter.
We see the screen time displayed and then ignore it. We are addicted to our habits. The emails keep rolling in at 10pm every night. You hear a chime or feel the buzz of a notification in your pocket and your mouth salivates like Pavlov’s experiment.
We have been programmed.
The “busy” engulfs us.
Hence, why the escape to vaca-land is becoming ever more important. It’s the safety net for our sanity.
So let me ask you:
Do you work on vacation?
-Q-FI
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