Vacation - The preferred drug of working people

What up Party People?!
I come before you with quite a burning issue in my head - Vacation Time. I've been blessed to be working now for about 4 years straight. Not something to take for granted in these times. As time has gone on now, I have accumulated a significant # of vacation days. As I have always tried to practice, I've used my days sparingly, opting for a long weekend here and there as opposed to a long stretch of days without coming to work. But last year, I decided to splurge, and took off 3 weeks, in a row (I also got married, so that added to the reasoning behind it).

Well, it's been one year since that happened and I've taken off some more time that required me missing a number of days in a row when me and Wifey went to Florida to visit the folks. MAN I LOVE THE FEELING!!! As you can see now, I've started to enjoy being out of the office multiple days in a row.

Hopefully you can see where I'm going with this, but if not, let me break it down for you. Ya see, when you're not at work, especially if you have a high stress job or work with high maintenance people, you look forward to getting away for a few days in a row, you get a "high" from not having to deal with the issues that plague you "Monday through Friday, 8 - 5", so to speak. But eventually, you will have to return to work, in order to get paid and begin to accumulate more vacation days. Have you ever said to yourself "Man sometimes it's more work to take a few days off than it's really even worth..."? I know I have. All the prep-work you do to make sure all your projects are completed in a timely fashion and all the emails you have to read after being out of the office for a few days, it's a lot of work! You get so tired and drained within a few days of coming back that you yearn to be back on vacation.

With all this, I say that taking a vacation is similar to the effects of drug; Think about it... Generally (not all, some) use a drug and get high, then they sober up and come down, a little bit "lower" than they were before they started using the drug. At first, they use very sporadically. Then they find themselves using again and again, trying to reach that original high, to the point that they "need" the drug just to get back to an "ordinary" state. Vacation is the same way - You start off with one day during the week, then you go to a long weekend, before you know it you want a whole week off. Only to feel a little bit more down when you return to work.

Now, sure, there are things that can be done to alleviate this feeling of constant need of reaching that "high" of not having to be at work:

Retire, but if you are under a certain age, or you haven't "put in your 30" then that just doesn't make sense...

Win the lottery, the chances of that are about as good as George W winning a Rhodes Scholar award.

Call in Sick, a lot, ok, don't do this, because when your dumb butt gets fired you're gonna ask me to borrow money, and I don't have it...

Suck it up and deal with it, this is what most of the normal working citizens are doing right now, you really are no different. Keep on counting down until your next vacation, when you can retire, or Friday night when you can play the numbers again.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go record my "Out of Office" message for all my co-workers...

Holla y'all!!!!