Last week I took a wonderful vacation down in St. Lucia. It was a magical week filled with absurdly colored drinks and a plethora of tiny umbrellas. It really hit the spot. Or, so I thought until I got into the office on Monday. Now, my tune has changed: Vacations suck.
Okay, maybe that's something of an overstatement. Vacations are wonderful. Their major weakness is that they always seem to end; thrusting you back into the office sans a week of productivity. Everyone hates the low after the high, and going from paradise back to a lifeless office building makes for a particularly long crash. That being said, there are five reappearing reasons that cause this return to be as maddening as possible.
Nothing Got Done: Maybe you've timed your vacation well, where you have everything done before departing. Okay, just kidding, that's insane and impossible. Instead, you've probably gotten as much done as possible and sent your time intensive work over to a coworker. Seemed like a good idea at the time, right? Well, nothing ever actually gets finished. Somehow, your boss's meeting that you've been painting that PowerPoint deck for was delayed until the day after you got back. Or, that report you've unsuccessfully been trying to get an extension on, well, you got it, it's extended until four hours after you come back. Thanks, job. You're the tits.
Early Release Days: Ah, now this is the unicorn of work life. Imagine, all you poor analysts cranking out 100 hour weeks, getting to leave at 3pm. Insane, right? Well, if you go on vacation, count on this happening while you're away.
Birthday/Retirement/Something Parties: This happens to me rather regularly. Every time I go on vacation, someone retires and has an awesome party, or someone turns 80 or something and everyone eats cake for 6 hours on a Thursday before going home at 5. Maybe this is intentional? I should look into this...
New & Hot Girl/Guy Employee Starts: I haven't noticed this recently, but that's probably because I'm old, married and don't care. But, back when I was young and single, some smoking hot HR analyst would start working and go around meeting people on her first day before going back to the HR department never to be seen again. It ended up taking weeks before I ended up noticing, only to be told that she started 3 months prior. If only I eschewed vacations, maybe things would've turned out differently?
Your Work Became Obsolete: Even though you may have passed some work on to a coworker, you still put the effort in to get some things taken care of ahead of time. You may have even stayed late(r) a few days prior to leaving to get work off your plate. If so, you can always count on some of it becoming totally obsolete in your absence, effectively wasting all the effort you put in prior to leaving. Like, maybe you wrote an article about the federal government shutdown that inexplicably ended at some random time before it hits. But, on the plus side, most people will give you a break here. The problem is, your damn coworker didn't get any of those tasks you sent them done, if only you would've hit those instead. Stupid hindsight.
In all seriousness, vacations are awesome. But, what's truly awful about vacations is that they end. As I'm sure you all noticed, the best way to avoid these (rather minor) pitfalls is to never stop being on vacation! I'll be sure to let you all know if I ever figure out how to do this!
All I got was that they throw parties when you leave, they're more productive when you aren't there, and you scare away the hot recruits. Probably time to find a new gig.
Spot on. Vacations are amazing and if you don't enjoy yours then you're doing some terribly, terribly wrong.
Disclaimer: I don't care what profession you're in, there is a week a year you can take to get away.
Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.
That's what you got from this post? Or, is that what you got after only reading the title and bolded text? If it's the latter, I can see how you'd come to that conclusion. If it's the former, you probably have Asperger's.
ain't nobody got time to read whole posts.. you nuts?
I dunno, it just seems like you notice the things you do miss out on more, especially with the new recruits thing. Kinda like you always remember when you changed an answer on a test and it was right the first time. I can't imagine that the hot recruits only come in when you're gone.
This mostly seems to all fit in the one category you initially named: Getting back to real life sucks. And its so true.
What a stupid post. Leaving is only bad in the case that your boss realizes how much he doesnt need you when your not there. You think like a beta worker bee. Sad.
The key here is to go so hard on the vacation that you need to get home to the office for physical well being.
Some of those reasons make no sense. Who cares if analysts leave at 3 pm as long as they get their stuff done. How is this bad?
You missed a new hot employee? Ok so based on this you should never take a vacation ever because at some point some hot employee will introduce themselves. While your at it, just spend Christmas at the office too, who knows a new hot janitor employee might come.
These reasons are not why vacations are bad. Title is extremely misleading. The only legitimate complaints are about a overload of work when you get back and this is a standard result of taking time off. It happens to everyone.
"Let's say you took a three year vacation. Would anybody here notice?". This is a question I often ask people at work. I can't figure out why I'm not more popular.
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