3 ms·

After seven years with my company, I was finally earning the highest amount of vacation hours per pay check, up to 15 days per year. In my fifteen year career,

by pstack 15y ago

After seven years with my company, I was finally earning the highest amount of vacation hours per pay check, up to 15 days per year. In my fifteen year career, as an adult, I've never taken a vacation and I don't really have any interest in doing so. I currently have about 300 hours of vacation banked. I'm at the limit, so unless I use some of that time, I won't earn any more. That's okay, because . . . I don't have any use for a vacation. I don't use sick days, either (I know a lot of people use their three or five allotted sick days from their company as personal time). I guess if I was digging ditches for a living, I'd want all the paid vacations I could possibly have. However, I work with computers and technology for a living and I love computers and technology. So . . you know . . . why would I want to take time off from doing something I enjoy? Not to mention, after I die, nobody is going to remember me fondly for the vacations I took, so I could sit in the sun and cook my skin next to a chlorinated pool in another country. They're going to remember me for any work ethic, personality, and accomplishments I had.

vacri 15y ago
Not to mention, after I die, nobody is going to remember me fondly for the vacations I took, so I could sit in the sun and cook my skin next to a chlorinated pool in another country. They're going to remember me for any work ethic, personality, and accomplishments I had. If that's all you think vacations are, no wonder you don't take them. My housemate is in Africa for 10 days with her mother at the moment. Another friend is going to Vietnam for two weeks shortly. Both of these ventures open the travelers up to new experiences and broaden not only their horizons, but mine by proxy. I can guarantee you that I will remember their trips to foreign lands more than I remember them spending another week in their jobs. I actually find it a little sad that you seem to think that broadening your perspective is worthless (ie: "here I am, why ever look elsewhere?")
- pstack 15y ago
  I've actually traveled a great deal (in my youth, including two years in Zambia and Kenya) and while it's not something I enjoy overall (for all the usual travel hassles, plus I'd rather spend my time earning money rather than spending it), I understand that your friend does. I don't know that there is anything particularly "perspective broadening" about it in a world that has grown so close together through technology and communication, but I'm sure she'll have plenty of memories and experiences from it. Memories and experiences don't necessarily have inherent value. They have personal value. I enjoy working. I enjoy that every week, I get to do technically creative and very detailed and complex things with people who are all over the planet. China, Japan, India, Australia, all over the UK, France, the Vatican, Israel, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Singapore and many others. Granted, taking time away from work makes you look bad, so not doing that is a point in my favor -- but I truly enjoy my work. I also enjoy that it allows me to own a home, have plans to buy my childhood home so it can stay in the family some day, put my siblings through college, help with financial support and technical guidance of my friends' businesses and projects, contribute to worthy causes, and someday potentially retire. Then again, if I have to die "young", I want to be one of those Karōshi deaths where they go out slumped over a pile of spreadsheets and whitepapers on their desk. So . . . take my preferences with a grain of salt, if you like.
danssig 15y ago
It sounds to me like no one is going to remember you at all. Are you working for your own company? If not it sounds like your whole life is nothing more than making some rich people even richer. If you are remembered at all, it will be for being the miserable person with no life who was literally at work every day. You'll make a great anti-role model.

by pstack 15y ago

vacri 15y ago

Not to mention, after I die, nobody is going to remember me fondly for the vacations I took, so I could sit in the sun and cook my skin next to a chlorinated pool in another country. They're going to remember me for any work ethic, personality, and accomplishments I had. If that's all you think vacations are, no wonder you don't take them. My housemate is in Africa for 10 days with her mother at the moment. Another friend is going to Vietnam for two weeks shortly. Both of these ventures open the travelers up to new experiences and broaden not only their horizons, but mine by proxy. I can guarantee you that I will remember their trips to foreign lands more than I remember them spending another week in their jobs. I actually find it a little sad that you seem to think that broadening your perspective is worthless (ie: "here I am, why ever look elsewhere?")

pstack 15y ago
I've actually traveled a great deal (in my youth, including two years in Zambia and Kenya) and while it's not something I enjoy overall (for all the usual travel hassles, plus I'd rather spend my time earning money rather than spending it), I understand that your friend does. I don't know that there is anything particularly "perspective broadening" about it in a world that has grown so close together through technology and communication, but I'm sure she'll have plenty of memories and experiences from it. Memories and experiences don't necessarily have inherent value. They have personal value. I enjoy working. I enjoy that every week, I get to do technically creative and very detailed and complex things with people who are all over the planet. China, Japan, India, Australia, all over the UK, France, the Vatican, Israel, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Singapore and many others. Granted, taking time away from work makes you look bad, so not doing that is a point in my favor -- but I truly enjoy my work. I also enjoy that it allows me to own a home, have plans to buy my childhood home so it can stay in the family some day, put my siblings through college, help with financial support and technical guidance of my friends' businesses and projects, contribute to worthy causes, and someday potentially retire. Then again, if I have to die "young", I want to be one of those Karōshi deaths where they go out slumped over a pile of spreadsheets and whitepapers on their desk. So . . . take my preferences with a grain of salt, if you like.

danssig 15y ago

It sounds to me like no one is going to remember you at all. Are you working for your own company? If not it sounds like your whole life is nothing more than making some rich people even richer. If you are remembered at all, it will be for being the miserable person with no life who was literally at work every day. You'll make a great anti-role model.