I’ve been thinking a lot about vacations lately. It’s been years since I’ve taken an annual two-week break from work. This year is no exception. I wonder if this is wise.
I suspect employers began offering vacations to long-term employees as a reward for their service, expecting workers to return from their two-week sojourn rested and ready to work with greater effectiveness.
Just as the weekend provides a short break from the workweek, a vacation provides a longer break from the work year. And we do need breaks.
Yet too many employees cram as much activity into their vacation time as possible. They come back exhausted instead of refreshed. They need to return to work to rest from their vacation.
This is not as it should be. For these folks, their work prior to their vacation is wasted in anticipation, and their work after vacation is equally unproductive because they’re too tired to do much.
Then there are people like me. At most of my jobs, no one did my work while I was gone. I’d spend the week before vacation, trying hard to work ahead.
Then, afterwards, it would take a couple weeks to catch up. For all the good my vacation did—and I actually rested on my vacations—the backlog of work when I returned quickly negated its benefits.
For the past fifteen years, a two-week vacation has been out of the question: the overlapping production schedules of multiple publications leaves me no time to take a long break.
Instead, I’ve opted for shorter respites, an occasional long weekend, a day trip here and there, even time off during the day for a quick outing.
It’s a rhythm that works for me, but all the while I wonder what I might be missing by not taking a two-week vacation.
When was your last vacation? What did you do?
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2 replies on “Is It Time For a Vacation?”
You have reminded me how blessed I am to have time off from work. When I work, I work pretty hard long days but I am compensated. My last vacation was a month long to emerge myself into family life at the end of a school year to understand better what daily life is for my wife. Truth be told, I don’t know how she does it.
Jerry, I’m glad you were able to take that time off (and not worry about work) to focus on family.