Intermission of employment

Alright, so I have been ignoring the blog for a while, because I have been trying to take a vacation from my life. It's been a very full few months and I am one of those people who can go for a long time...but when I get knackered, I need serious down time.

My attempt at serious down time was a 3 day jaunt to Puerto Rico, which was delightful in every way, except for the 3 day bit. Coming home on a packed plane full of grumpy people who clearly felt that their vacationing time was also sub par, I started thinking about the idea of a vacation itself...

I am fortunate enough at this stage in my life to be able to take a trip here and there. But, I am finding that the longer I live in the US, the shorter my vacations get. To be fair, I don't remember having long vacations when I lived in Canada, but at the time I didn't have the means to take any vacations other than just 'I am not at work, yeay!' vacations....But I also don't ever remember being in such a need of a vacation as I do now.

Could it be, that living on the east coast of a very metropolitan area, has over time made me into a short attention spanned, low tempered, needing constant external input basket case? What would happen if I suddenly found myself without the means to escape the rat race....or worse yet, if I was dropped into a desert without restaurants, movie theaters or shopping. Would I implode and become the next best thing to the Hadron Collider? I'm sure it would be quite spectacular!

I work in an international company with colleagues of many cultural backgrounds. We have often discussed our dreams and wishes for vacations, as well as our expectations for what a 'vacation' truly is. One thing is for sure, that no matter how much vacational funding people do or do not have, and no matter what culture people may come from, there is always a group who delight in the 'I am not at work, yeay!' vacation. These are the ones who find it most relaxing to simply sleep in, stay in their pj's all day and not really leave the house all that much. Then there are those who don't consider it a vacation until they sleep in a bed that is not their own, located somewhere which is not their home (i.e. Puerto Rico). As you may have guessed I am the latter, although, there is something to be said about staying in bed until noon just because you can.

One thing that is also universally clear, is that the more time you have off, the better you feel and that a vacation isn't really a vacation until it is at least 5 days planned as a 'time off' (feel free to comment on this if you are of another opinion). This excludes days off in between work shifts or random acts of God such as 6 feet of snow overnight, broken limbs, etc....

However, the most interesting thing to note is that some cultures do not think a vacation is a vacation, unless it is at least 2 weeks off. This being the Scandinavian cultures, who find it customary to take 2 to 5 week vacations and will look at you as though you've sprouted a second head when you tell them that you just had a vacation in Puerto Rico for 3 days. (We are not pointing fingers Mr.L). This is interesting to me, simply because I just cannot wrap my head around the concept of taking that much time off. This has never happened to me before and I certainly can't imagine that I would be productive upon my return to work after such a time, assuming that I could bring myself to come back at all. As it is, I can hardly remember all the passwords after 3 days of piña coladas, never mind three weeks! My brain would be absolute mush and I would have to re-learn everything I need to know all over again. Not the type of a learning curve I am looking for in my career.

Could it be that our approach to vacation is related to our approach to working? In 'Mer'ca, if you work 8 hours a day, you are a slacker who has no passion for your job and is grossly underachieving. In places like Sweden for example, if you work more than 8 hours a day, you are incompetent and can't manage the tasks assigned to you. Hmmm, perhaps those people find it slightly more satisfying to have productive work lives balanced with quality 'I am not at work, yeay!' time. Perhaps, if one were to measure the 'Happiness Index' of all the countries in the world, one might find some interesting insight into who is feelin' chill and who is feelin' a little stressed.  Of course matters of economy and various governmental influences may also have an impact here, but to me it seems that those countries who value the time and environment outside of work are much happier indeed...(and here I make sweeping generalizations).

All I am really saying is that a 3 day trip to Puerto Rico only served to show me how high my un-relaxation has been over the last few months, but was no where long enough to start washing any of it away. Oh well...at this point I'm just counting down the hours to Good Friday, which I took off to make myself feel like I am having a little, mini 'I am not at work, yeay!' vacation.