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. . .But I have to as I have too much on my plate at work to put off until another day. How often does this happen to you?

Yes, I took Friday off and had a three day weekend, but it wasn’t a relaxing weekend to say the least. When I am off, my days are full of projects, errands and chores. Sometimes I end up working just as hard, if not harder on my days off than I do at work, so by the time I have to return to work, I am tired and unrelaxed.

Last year I had 60 hours of paid time off roll over into my sick leave pool because I didn’t take it. We are only allowed to keep a maximum of 44 days of paid time off before the surplus is rolled over to sick leave.

Someone asked me the other day when the last time I took a full-fledged, go somewhere, do nothing vacation. After thinking, it struck me. The last time I took a full-fledged, go somewhere, do nothing vacation was in 1982! That was 37 years ago.

Oh, well, it’s time to sign-off and go get ready for work, after all, it is 4:45 a.m. and I have plenty to do today.

41 Spice ups
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You’re probably working yourself into an early grave!

I’ve recently been trying to make sure I schedule “something” once every quarter.

If it’s only ever 3 or 4 months until my next holiday, it makes being at work much easier

5 Spice ups
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4:45am…Are you crazy? You should be sleeping!

It’s 12 noon here in the UK and I feel like I should still be sleeping now.

37 years without a proper holiday is impressive though. You are a dedicated employee.

2 Spice ups
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Welcome to my world my friend.

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Getting up pre-dawn to start the fires and feed the animals, going out to the fields and laboring all day with your hands, chopping firewood in the summer, hauling chunks of ice to the shed in the winter, milling boards out of logs, currying the horses, slaughtering the animals, stalking through the woods to hunt, digging ditches and wells, sleeping in a house with no heat, feeding your family, coping with disease and drought, and burying your children - that was work.

Getting up out of your soft bed, driving your car to work, sitting in an air-conditioned office? That is a vacation.

Count your blessings.

13 Spice ups
6

I’m not real keen on taking time off for “long” vacations. We have a camper so I typically just take a Friday off and have a nice 3 day camping weekend which is great. We went camping 10 times last year.

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You need to take a holiday , book one now!!

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As much as I enjoy a nice vacation or just a day off here and there for R & R, I don’t think time off really exists much in our line of work. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and not get bothered with phone calls or emails but more often than not, I get engaged with work while taking PTO/vacation/sick whatever your organization calls it.

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See for me personally I don’t need a vacation, per se. I just need time that is for me. The problem is I always feel guilty taking it. Like taking 2-3 hours to game a bit on a weekend or something. That time allows me to just zone out and drop all the stress and worry but not really because like I said then I feel guilty that I am not devoting that time to something constructive or to my family even. I do try to read a chapter of a book at minimum each night before bed. I feel less guilty about that I guess.

3 Spice ups
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Happens to me pretty much every Monday.

However, if you wait until you have time for a vacation (in terms of being ‘caught up enough’ on the to-do list) you will never take time for one. Some days you’ve just got to blow off the “stuff” of life including work and chores and just go.

Even just a single day can do wonders. Every so often my wife and I throw the dog and a picnic lunch in the car, drive to a beach on the Chesapeake Bay (about an hour-ish drive), and just spend the day sitting, reading, talking and enjoying the outdoors.

Don’t think about it, DO IT. The chores will wait.

5 Spice ups
11

You should really think about taking a few days off, even if it’s just two or three and completely unplugging yourself. That’ll allow you to recharge your batteries.

1 Spice up
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A “Go somewhere, do nothing vacation”? I’ve taken exactly 2 in my life. A 3-day weekend leaves enough work piled up for me to deal with when I get back that I’m almost afraid to take a full vacation. My personal record for new emails on a Monday morning is somewhere over 10,000 (I say “somewhere over” because my inbox ran out of space sometime Sunday night).

2 Spice ups
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I quit my last job to have a “go somewhere, do nothing vacation” for 10 months. It was great.

6 Spice ups
14

I feel you. I havent taken a vacation in over 10 years. And now I have a 2 and 1 year old. The closet thing I get to a vacation is a conference I go to in the summer.

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I agree with Robert. Whenever I feel that things are rough I just think back on the Little House stories I read with my kids. Most of us have it really really good.

But dang - no true vacation in 37 years… that stinks but surely that’s on you?

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I didn’t go into work today. 6-8 inches of drifting and poor road conditions made my choice to remote in from home.

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Ah, the old “uphill, both ways, in the snow” retort.

You had a house? Why, Neanderthals lived in caves!

Then, of course, early primates think everyone’s gone soft ever since they started walking upgright…

14 Spice ups
18

I completely understand where you’re coming from. I, too, have realized I’m not utilizing my vacation time. This year, I’ve made it my mission to utilize it by visiting friends in different states (on a quarterly basis). With the right preparation beforehand, my job really can survive without me… Who knew!

2 Spice ups
19

Do you OWN ‘NetAdminWorld’? If you don’t, start making arrangements for an actual vacation NOW. Should be at least a week contiguous, if not two. Unlike others, however, I’d say have a notebook/cellphone with you in case of emergency. I was reading a local government study where they found that if employees didn’t use at least four days off consecutively, the net effect on them was they hadn’t had any time off at all. The government was recommending making at least one full week of vacation per year mandatory, rather than just X number of days.

You could always visit Florida. :wink:

Disagree a little on that. How many times have we seen ‘rough’ workers accuse those like us of not having ‘real jobs’, but studies have found that despite those jobs being physically intensive, they didn’t have the mental drag that modern office jobs do. Especially in IT, where work can stay with us 24/7? I find that going out and doing some good old ‘ditch-digging’ has me feeling more refreshed afterwards!

3 Spice ups
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DUDE VACATION TIME SERIOUSLY. Its been a long time since I have taken a true vacation myself but I do have a week planned this year as being off and we are doing our first family vacation, all 5 of us in a car.

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