I don’t know about anyone else, but the work I do to pay my bills is hell. I’ve been overworked, overly stressed, underpaid, and I’ve been feeling quite underappreciated. And I suspect I’m far from alone in that.
But for me it’s different. In addition to doing the things that pay my bills and help put food on the table, and, of course, this weekly column, I also have responsibilities as a caregiver. So even when I’m home, I’m still working. It’s just that those responsibilities are not the paying kind... just like this column. Plus, my daily commute is fraught with all sorts of stress and dangers because I’m having to deal with high-speed traffic full of self-entitled arrogant drivers. I do not exaggerate when I say that my commute has at least one traffic accident every day.
And all of that does wreak havoc with me physically. I can’t remember the last time I had more than 2 hours of sleep at night. I have a series of “naps” that make every night feel like an eternity. The hazardous commute triggers my PTSD, which was created by all the bad drivers out there. My muscles twitch and spasm at various times. These are not good things.
So, yeah, everyone keeps telling me that I really need a vacation. And not just the occasional holiday and one or two days off from the bill-paying work, because that really doesn’t stop the other responsibilities. Any extra day or two off simply means I continue the caregiving responsibilities, not to mention a plethora of other things that need to be done that usually aren’t because I’m at the bill-paying job.
Getting that vacation can be a feat in and of itself for yours truly. It’s not that I can’t take a vacation, but that it has to be coordinated with that bill-paying work so that others can cover the work that I get paid to do. But they can’t do that if they’re also having to cover the work of others who also take that time off… and they always seem to claim that vacation time before I can.
But when it does happen… when I am able to take a vacation… then something strange happens. And it doesn’t matter if it is an actual vacation where I am away from the home, or a staycation where I don’t go anywhere. It happens either way.
Let’s start when the vacation begins…
End-of-work Friday – This is when my vacation truly begins. There is joy in knowing that I have a whole week plus two weekends to myself. Even if the commute home is full of accidents and traffic jams – and for some reason that always seems to happen every time I go on vacation – I am not stressed. I know I have a whole week plus two weekends to relax and enjoy things. I’m calm and patient and I slowly make my way home to enjoy my time off.
First Weekend – The weekend usually doesn’t change unless I go on an actual away-from-home vacation. I just feel better because I know that I am on vacation.
Monday – I get up in a panic, kicking myself because somehow the alarm clock doesn’t wake me like it’s supposed to, and I start to rush through a shower and getting ready for work. But then I stop. I stop because I realize that the alarm clock didn’t wake me up because I didn’t set it. I’m on vacation! I try to go back to sleep for a little while longer and maybe try to catch up on that lost sleep, but it doesn’t always happen that way. Basically I spend those hours with my coffee and some breakfast, watching the morning news for the latest traffic jams and if my commute would have been ruined. I also check my phone often because, even though I know other people can do my work in my absence, I still feel like there’s something that’s going to ruin my time off, even though it doesn’t happen.
I start to feel good on that Monday. I’m relaxed. I don’t have to go to work. My vacation is just starting. I can do all the things that I wanted to do, go to all the places I wanted to go, work on whatever hobby that is waiting for me, and know that I have the whole week ahead of me. I’ll even stay up a little later than usual because I know that I don’t have to get up in the morning.
Tuesday – Tuesday is really the first day that the vacation kicks in for me. I sleep in later. I may even get more than two hours of sleep at a time. The breakfast is good. I’m not checking my phone to see if work needs me for something. I’m not checking the morning news and traffic reports. I’ll check the weather if I need to go anywhere, but otherwise I enjoy the day because it’s still the first half of my vacation and…
Friday – Wait. What happened to Wednesday and Thursday? You’re not the only one wondering about that. And, for that matter, what about the rest of Tuesday?
I know there’s stuff that I did on those days, but, no matter if it’s a staycation or an away-from-home actual vacation, that time was just a blur. If I think about it, I can recall the stuff I did, but there is no sense of time spent like on Monday. That leaves me with Friday and the realization that my vacation will soon come to an end sooner than I thought.
Second Weekend – Just like the first, there are still things that need to be done, but not with the sense of joy and relaxation. My week-long vacation is ending, and now I have stuff to do in order to get ready to go back to work the following Monday and figure out what sort of stuff happened in my absence.
That’s what happens to me when I take a vacation.
Something else I am starting to notice in the past few years is that, no matter how long I take off, be it for a couple of days or a whole week, when I do get back to that bill-paying job, I quickly lose whatever feeling of calm and relaxation I may have had picked up from my time off. The stress and aggravation not only come back, but it does so with a vengeance. It’s almost as if the world is making me suffer for the “luxury” of taking that time off.
Now, let’s get brutally honest here… I know your experiences most likely vary from my own when it comes to that needed time off, but I’m sure many of you would agree that we have a serious problem when people are overworked and overstressed as part of their job requirement. Working two or three jobs used to be an oddity. Today, many American families need to do that just to keep the bills paid and food on the table and a roof over their heads.
And it’s not just an American problem. Japanese workers will literally work themselves to death or even suicide and it’s considered just the price of doing business.
The problem is work. While we may know the value of it, the ones that own and run the workplace clearly don’t.
You look at workers at WalMart who are told how to sign up for food stamps so they can supplement their meager wages. You look at the people at Amazon who reportedly get paid more than most other places but still work in hard conditions to the point to where they recently considered joining a union. You look at that and you compare that to someone like Jeff Bezos, who just bought a yacht so big it comes with its own smaller yacht. We’re working harder and harder, the cost of living goes up faster than whatever wages we get, and when we do get time off, we’re made to feel like we don’t deserve it. And the people up on top? They seem to enjoy the good things for us.
That’s something for us all to think about… when we have the time to. Maybe on your next vacation you can ponder it. If you’re able to have one.
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