Holiday vacation? I think not.

After several weeks of jettisoning around the country (visiting family, family of boyfriend, etc) I returned to what I suppose I would call a regular routine today. By this, I mean I had meetings and appointments, wrote a bit of code, and responded to a backlog of emails. Unfortunately, as I have found to be the case in recent years, I returned from vacation more bedraggled than I was at its onset. Between flying, loving and bickering with my family, schmoozing with various friends of my grandmother who I'd not met in my memorable past, finalizing my architecture project, and falling ill the last few days of break, I'd done quite the opposite of what I would call relaxing. This gave me incentive to do some calculations: what percentage of my "vacation time" since the beginning of high school have I spent doing things which were relaxing and resting?

Let's just say the results weren't too good. I full time worked through breaks in high school, did the same for summers as an undergrad, with about a week when I would be traveling or visiting family (both of which I enjoy very much; neither of which I would call relaxing). Winter and spring breaks I've spent either traveling(Israel), studying for exams(GRE), preparing for other ridiculous endeavors (spring training for Crew), or visiting relatives. The single exception was my first winter home from college. I'd spent approximately 40% of that time in bed, recovering from mono and strep which had affixed themselves to my under-rested, overstressed body in its new environment. Morever, I have noticed a marked rise in the regularity with which I fall ill since high school, particularly towards the end of vacations.

Much to my dismay, external observations suggest to me that my unwillingness to use vacation to recharge and relax I cannot attribute entirely to my type A personality ("What?! Aren't you DOING anything for your break?!"). According to the Birmingham Business Journal , 2/3 of Americans didn't even take all of their allotted vacation time this year, up from a bit over 1/3 just last year. What's more, a 2006 study suggested 65% of employees had difficulty coping with the stress of being on vacation. More than a quarter choose to check email and voicemail while away.

Since when did we become a society in which taking a break was so looked down upon? So difficult for us to do? The state of current economic affairs is burdened with the sudden increase in these numbers, but research suggests we've been this way for much longer than the last several years. Our 14 days of vacation annually are less than 2/3 of Britain's 25, and embarrassingly low when compared to France's 36. It isn't just our European friends who've gotten the right idea of things: Korea and Japan have us beat by significant margins, too.

You might argue that I, having not held a "proper job" (read: one with health insurance, annual contract, or paid vacation), have little room to complain. On the contrary, I would say any of those of us working the hourly wage jobs understand all too well the grievances of the
white collar worker. When they choose to skip on their vacation, or to treat it as something other than vacation, we are expected to, too. The societal expectation is, if one wishes to be happy, one must be successful, and to do so one must be productive and not take time off. We must feel guilty about any time we do take off so as to create a disincentive to counterbalance the innate desire to relax. If we have not worked hard enough to even attain a job where paid vacation is available, we have no right to complain. Meritocracies are the best when you're on top, aren't they?

But, I would argue, viewing vacation as a crutch isn't even the best for those on top. What good is paid vacation if you never take it? When you leave your job, you might get additional compensation, but you only net positive pay if you can work the same duration at the same job with less vacation. A financial incentive for forgoing vacation only exists if your productivity does not decline by much more than 5% (2 weeks out of 52) due to lack of rest. Our GDP coincides with us wee hourly wage workers in pleading for you to take your vacation and run with it.

I make this point somewhat tangentially: my original goal was to investigate the reasoning behind my inability to take vacation for face value: a time to repose, to catch up on some reading, and to more generally refresh my body and mind. However, what with all the pressure to never take vacation in the first place, having any time at all makes me feel far too guilty about the freedom, making me fill up my schedule as though I weren't on break at all.

And, with that, I realize this post has taken me far too much time. Best get back to work.