Work is a mind-numbing, soul-sucking affair, on the whole. Even if you love your job, you're looking forward to the weekends, when you regain at least some slight measure of 'being your own person,' and if you don't like your job, well...no need to preach to the choir.
Which is why vacation is so important. That time when you have multiple days, none of which is filled with meetings, or conference calls, or serving biddies their borscht, or calling tech support, or...you get the idea. It's a time when your alarm doesn't need to be set. It's a time when you can just get away from it all and recharge your batteries.
Unless all your vacation time is eaten up by the necessity vacation.
There are multiple kinds of necessity vacations, but amongst the most visible are family vacations you'd rather not take, and weddings.
In the former, you're reminded of why you jokingly use that phrase "I love my family, but I just can't live under the same roof as [parent] for more than 2 days now before I go stir-crazy." In the latter, you spend money and time, in a city that you may not like or be able to afford, for a couple you may not think are going to last.
It's not that you don't love the one or the other, it's just that you only have a limited time where you can get as drunk as you did in college, and sleep in without a parent or a timetable telling you that "really, why waste the day away like that?" or wear nasty sweatpants for a week straight. Okay, you might be able to do that last one with family, but you might get a few snide remarks.
Someday, someday soon, I'll be able to buy my way to a real vacation. Until then, HELLO, FAMILY! No really, I can't picture a better way to spend my summer days!
Sigh...
-Posted by Jilly
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
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I would like to coin the term "obligation vacation" for exactly this phenomenon.
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