Does a dive into a lake of calm sound really good about now?
In my opinion, there is actually one addiction in the U.S. that is socially accepted in fact almost esteemed and that is being a workaholic. You can become addicted to work, where it ends up consuming your life, and yet, who is going to tell you to...make you...work less?
I spent a good 12 years working in Silicon Valley where people joked that a 40-hour week was part-time. Over there, it's typical to work 60-hour weeks and in many companies especially start-ups, it's practically expected. If you're a business owner, well forget it, vacation...what is that?
In one of the companies I worked at, one of the Vice-Presidents had a heart attack at work, and then had triple bypass surgery. Three days later he was back on email from his hospital bed. Many people publicly applauded him and called him the ultimate studly worker. Personally, I thought what an idiot (yes I was harsh) because he was paying absolutely no respect to his body, his healing, or to his family who had to go through all that worry.
To me, he was setting a poor example not a good one to the workers of our company. In fact, that incident was one of the major contributing factors in me leaving that company. It wasn't the actions of the VP, it was more the actions of the management. They let him get back to work 3 days after triple bypass surgery!If I was that guy's boss, I would have cut off his email and told him that he was not allowed back doing any kind of work until his medical leave was over. (He was out for 12-weeks, the standard medical leave time in California.) His only job on medical leave was healing.
Silicon Valley is not an exception in the U.S.
I was reading this article on CNN, "Why is America the 'no-vacation nations'?", and the thing that stuck out most to me was this, "The U.S. is the only advanced nation in the world that doesn't guarantee its workers annual leave, according to a report titled "No-Vacation Nation" by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal policy group."
In many countries around the globe, the government mandates company's to provide paid vacation. In the U.S., companies are not legally obligated to give you vacation, but they do because they need to retain talent. Even that reason sounds lame doesn't it? Why not provide vacation because oh it gives your workers a chance to rest and power back up. It's like working out. You can't workout every single day without eventually burning out your body. Rest days are crucial.
And yes all this overwork has made the U.S a super economic power, but guess what, according to the World Economic Forum's 2010-2011 rankings the United States came in fourth of the most competitive economies, but Sweden -- a country that by law offers workers five weeks of paid vacation -- came in second.
The Top 10 in order were: Switzerland, Sweden, Singapore, US, Germany, Japan, Finland, Netherlands, Denmark, and Canada. 6 of the top 10 are European countries, where leisure and social time are valued more than in the US... you know that saying work to live versus live to work.
Hmmm, so we're working ourselves practically to do death here and there are other countries who are equally or more competitive than we are and yet still manage to take more time off. Perhaps they are worker smarter versus harder? Or perhaps, they truly understand that time away from the office is actually a beneficial thing for the bottom line. Happy rested workers are productive workers. Working more doesn't automatically mean that people are producing more.
If you haven't taken a vacation in a year, what are you waiting for? Go now! Take a break. Go play. Go on an adventure. Frolic somewhere with someone fun. Give your body, mind, and soul a break from the office. It's one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself.
Photo #1 on Flickr by notsogoodphotography, Photo #2 on Flickr by herval, Photo #3 on Flickr by mwri
