Once again, Expedia has released its survey on vacation deprivation and once again it’s a depressing read. My fellow countrymen and women easily get the distinction of being the most vacation-deprived people in the developed world. Another dubious “win.” Yee-ha! We’re number one!
It’s the usual litany of getting a crappy number of vacation days and then not even taking those. “The survey revealed that Americans are likely to give back more than 574 million vacation days in 2006, with each employed U.S. adult age 18 and older anticipated to leave an average of four vacation days on the table.”
I live here in this workaholic nation and have been in the rat race corporate world plenty of years, but I still don’t get it. What’s wrong with you people? Unemployment is close to 5% and is going down, so it’s not like there are no other jobs out there. And no matter how important you feel you are, the company is not going to fall apart if you go away for two weeks. If it does, you’re a terrible manager or you’re really bad at hiring.
Plus the amount of evidence that neglecting time off is bad for your health and your creativity is overwhelming. Study after study has shown that working too much makes you fat, is bad for your marriage, decreases your life expenctancy, increases your risk of heart disease, makes you more likely to need depression medication, and on and on.
Put the Crackberry in a drawer, put an out-of-office reply on your e-mail, turn off the cellphone, and go see how the rest of the world lives for at least two weeks. The people you meet might not have as much stuff in their attic, but they’re probably enjoying their daily life more.
Related posts:
Take a sabbatical
Vacation time around the world
Money for travel: a matter of priorities
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