The Window Seat: Vacation: One Day at a Time

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I just got back to work from a family vacation to Hilton Head Island. The trip was my second this season that involved taking time off of work. Summer, to me, is synonymous with vacation days.

It seems I’m in the minority.

According to the New York Times, roughly 50 percent of working Americans won’t take a warm-weather vacation this year. The article offers several reasons for the decline, but one of the main reasons is fear of losing ground with your employer if you do take a little R&R. This too, is one of the reasons we have such a hard time disconnecting from work; after all, obsessive Blackberry-ing, and voicemail checking are the norm on the beach and by the pool these days. This is not my idea of a vacation (see blog profile), but maybe it’s yours. But is time off really time off if you’re dialing into a conference call or responding to emails – even if you’re doing it with a frosty drink in hand?

A similarly themed piece in The Wall Street Journal hints that we’ve moved away from the days of week-long vacations and into the era of long weekends. It opens with the story of a woman who is flying to Barcelona for a weekend getaway. How silly, I initially thought. But then I remembered I did a similar thing this past winter – a flight to Geneva, two days of skiing nearby in the French Alps, and back to New York. Total time taken off work? One day. Everyone thought I was nuts – but at the time I really couldn’t afford to be out of the office for any length of time. So my choices boiled down to going for the weekend or not going at all.

What about you? Where did you go this summer (or where are you going) and for how long? How connected did you stay to the office while you were away? And what are your reasons for making the decision to take a long trip or a quick weekend getaway?

And even though Labor Day is fast approaching, there’s still time to take a summer vacation – provided you haven’t used up all your days yet. But it seems like that’s pretty unlikely!

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Comments

Me, I took 2 vacations between Memorial Day and 4th of July. They weren't very long, but very fun. New Orleans, New Jersey, Cheyenne.

Posted by: Connie | August 17, 2007 10:39 AM

I think that companies should really offer more vacation days, I would love to travel more if I had the opportuity. I was only able to take a few long weekends all summer. I think work would be more productive if the employees were given more time off to relax and rest. Who ever started this 5 day work thing anyway?

Posted by: Ryan | August 24, 2007 11:48 AM