Comments on: America: The No Vacation Nation

By: theprofessionalhobo

theprofessionalhobo — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 01:36:53 +0000

@The Know – I hear ya! And I hope – for your sake – that the job is worth it, or is a means to something that’s worth it.
I put in many years of drudgery before I was in a position to pack up and travel. In some ways it helps me appreciate the freedom I have all the more! There’s still lots of work to do, but it’s on different terms.

By: The Know

The Know — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 17:15:29 +0000

This subject is definitely a sore spot for me. I am so frustrated with corporate America and the lack of balancing a healthy lifestyle. I fell in love with traveling after I studied abroad in Europe twice and I was so eager to graduate from school to start making money in my career. Unfortunately, I can’t exactly use the money I make in my career to travel for months at a time like I used to do when I was in college. In my current job, we have to wait until we’ve been there for 1 year so that we can be granted our 5 days of paid vacation time. At this point, I’ve been here for 9 months and I have 0 paid vacation time. Oh how I wish we can adopt the Italian, Spanish or Australian way of life! Work is not what “LIFE” is about.

By: theprofessionalhobo

theprofessionalhobo — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:25:48 +0000

@Lauren – You bring up several wonderful points: about what it is to work hard through our younger school years to make ends meet, and about what it is to be less fortunate with a need to work long hours. Even a vacation spent at home can be a luxury. Thank you for this perspective!

By: Lauren Quinn

Lauren Quinn — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:47:38 +0000

Great post and great discussion. During college, I worked 2 part-time jobs in addition to full-time classes–a total of about 60 hours a week of work, with never more than 2 days in a row off (usually only 1 though). I did this with no benefits, no sick days, no paid holidays and, of course, no vacation time. It’s what I had to do to survive and pay for school. While I do think overworking and over-consumption is ingrained in our culture, it’s also a result of relatively weak organized labor–relative to Western Europe. Thank God, I’ve since found a way to travel about 1/4 of the year, but I definitely know what’s it’s like to be sucked into the grind out of necessity. You forget what vacation is. In restaurants, I’ve worked with immigrants who work 80 hours a week with no days off for years on end, to provide a better life for their kids. I count myself as extremely fortunate to be able to give myself time to travel–even if it’s unpaid!

Thanks for bringing this up!

By: theprofessionalhobo

theprofessionalhobo — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:20:54 +0000

In reply to Dave.

@Dave – You bring up a great point about returning to the work force after a RTW trip….I don’t know that I could ever accept such short vacations myself. However that’s part of the reason I have been working for myself for the last 10 years or so….I’d rather set my own rules.
(However I always joke that I’m my own boss, but my boss is a b**ch! She never stops cracking the whip!!!)

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:07:37 +0000

“using long weekends to maximize time away from the office”

I certainly did this many times, and I was a lucky one to have 3 weeks of vacation at my first job, and 4 weeks at my second (both start-ups, which tend to value time off more).

And I can relate about being out of touch with the corporate mentality toward time off. I think most countries in the world deserve at least 1 month of my time, so I don’t know how I can continue to *not* be a professional hobo since returning from my RTW trip. 🙂

By: theprofessionalhobo

theprofessionalhobo — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:15:31 +0000

@Joe – As the Aussies would say, “ta”! Glad you enjoyed the post about wealth.

By: Joe Todd

Joe Todd — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:30:03 +0000

Thanks for the link to true definition of wealth . Excellent post. For me I hopefully have recovered from “The disease of More”

By: theprofessionalhobo

theprofessionalhobo — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:18:50 +0000

@Toby – It’s just too bad that success (at least in North America) more often than not is connected to being a workaholic. Ah well – I guess it’s the good/bad/ugly of capitalism…

@Joe – Thank you for boiling it down to just beautiful simplicity. A fellow once said to me if we could all just “be”, we’d be much happier.
I wrote a post on the true definition of wealth here (you may be interested):
http://www.wisebread.com/the-truth-about-wealth

@Maya – I wonder if your US friend simply doesn’t know any better than to work as hard as he does, even though he is in Australia where things are more relaxed. It seems to be part of the working culture in much of the States; if you aren’t working as hard as you possibly can, there’s something wrong with you.

By: Toby

Toby — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:26:43 +0000

@Nora — I think that that is definitely true for many of the people speaking at Harvard. It is something that they admitted (at least as described in the book by Philip Broughton). Absence from work, especially for an extended vacation, can definitely impact someone negatively in the workplace, and so the safest route is probably to not go on vacation. That is certainly not the happiest route to take through life but the one that they chose based on their priority on job achievement. Of course, there are entrepreneurial outliers like Mark Zuckerberg, but at least half of their success has got to be luck.