Ever take a two week vacation?

Understood.

As I said, yes I have.

But most of my colleagues have not / do not. They also don't run and don't visit LRC.

Of my friends who do run and do visit LRC (and who are not teachers/ coaches with a summer vacation) I would say that 1/3 to 1/2 of them take 2 week vacations.

I haven't. When I interned in Germany I noticed it was normal for people to go away for 2, even 3 weeks in the summer.

I think this thread says more about American work culture than the individuals themselves.

this thread is so sad. hope you 'mericans at least realize that this is not normal in developed countries. 5-6 weeks of vacation / year are not unsustainable economically. without a 2-3 week long vacation in the summer, I would surely be less productive the rest of the year.

I'm going to expand on my earlier comment that it's much easier in certain positions than others. For example, my wife is a nurse. She could take as much time off as she needs. When nurses aren't in the hospital, their work is covered by other nurses. No work accumulates when she's not at work. I wish it were like this in my office job!

For like 12 years, my wife and I would take vacations ranging from 3 to 5 months. We would take two weeks off work when we got home to get back in the swing of things.

Yep, I have.

It certainly depends on the type of job, whether someone can cover your work or you come back to your work piled up.

But even then, how many people who can get away from work for two weeks actually leave their home for two weeks?

I'm not only talking about being off for two weeks but going away somewhere during that time.

I'd count visiting family. It's expensive to pay for two weeks stay somewhere.

I still want to hear simply taking off for two weeks, though. (for a year round job)

Yes. just got back Monday after 2 weeks in Europe. Not always easy to get summer time off as every project deadline seems to be planned for the summer. Not sure why.

Star wrote:

Have any of you taken a full two week vacation while working a full time job?

I mean actually going away and visiting some place or multiple places and coming back home two weeks later and then back to work.

I know I've never done done that.

I assume it's pretty rare.

Mostly it's hard to have your work covered for two straight weeks besides it being expensive to be way for that long.

I've never taken a 2 week vacation. I'm in sales and it is very difficult to hit a monthly sales goal while taking a big chunk of time off. That said, I'm going to take at least a week off in October to celebrate my 10 year wedding anniversary. Hopefully it doesn't tank my month.

So what if it does?

You're too busy focussing on monthly sales numbers to live your life.

Stop living one sales goal at a time. There's more to life.

This thread is sad. It's the responsibility of the employer to find a way to cover you. The world wont stop because the job that any one of you does isn't done for 2 weeks.

Life>Work wrote:

So what if it does?

You're too busy focussing on monthly sales numbers to live your life.

Stop living one sales goal at a time. There's more to life.

This thread is sad. It's the responsibility of the employer to find a way to cover you. The world wont stop because the job that any one of you does isn't done for 2 weeks.

I can respect that, however, if I have a bad month, my pay suffers. I have to live one sales goal at a time. Furthermore, in an industry driven solely by $$, your job is on the line every month. If you're not there to bring in the $$, nobody can do it for you. The money doesn't just appear while you're away, and my boss can't "cover" for me and close my deals for me.

That said, I agree. It is sad. But I make enough money for my family, and I only work 37.5 hours a week. I never work evenings or weekends, and I never travel for work. So, it may be hard for me to take vacation, but I get home at 5PM every day and I don't have to think about it until the next morning when I walk into the office.

Self employed so it's easy to schedule two weeks. We usually do a local trip leave Friday night back Sunday night then take a 10 day 9 night- out as early as possible Tuesday thru the weekend then back as late as possible Thursday- as the going away portion. Take another local overnight trip staying Friday night . The local trips tend to be visits to places of interest where friends live-- North Fork LI, and Hudson Valley type backroad stuff.

I recommend the leave Tuesday back Thursday 10 days thing--- plenty of time to see the destination. Enough time to enjoy being off at home You can throw a party, or as I said visit local friends who are just a bit too far away to see often. Homeowners have a weekend to maintain and get to some of the chores.

I haven't been away from work for more than one week in over 25 years. I've been continuously employed during that time, as well.

I'm in the military. We have 30 days leave per year, plus we get at least one four-day weekend per month on average. It's perfectly normal for people to take two weeks at a time. People often take 30 days when transitioning between duty stations, so roughly every two years.

Leave accumulates over time, but if you go over 60 you lose your leave time at the start of the next fiscal year. A lot of leaders (perhaps most) will make their subordinates take leave if they are accumulating "use or lose" leave.

It's weird, but the military is one of the only organizations around that doesn't treat its employees like absolute shit. My colleagues routinely complain about military life, but they just don't have an appropriate basis for comparison.

When my wife and I had been married for a year we took two weeks and drove from Virginia to Yellowstone and Grand Teton. Now I work in sales on a commission and rarely take more than 5 consecutive days at a time. However, I expect to retire early.

A few times.

1) I would check email every few days just to see if there was something major that needed taken care of. Otherwise I let the emails wait until I got back. Out of office reply told folks I would not be getting back to them.

2) Took them during a time where relatively little happened in my field.

3) Had some other folks that could handle routine matters

4) Honestly my job allowed me to plan ahead and make arrangements and was not a life and death situation.

Too many people think they look like they do not work hard if they take vacations and yet people waste hours online every day at work or stay just to be seen and not really productive.

I could argue it is expensive not to do it. Does not have to be a costly trip depending on what you want to do. (I will admit that I was traveling a lot so airline miles and hotel points deferred a lot of expense).

Life>Work wrote:

So what if it does?

You're too busy focussing on monthly sales numbers to live your life.

Stop living one sales goal at a time. There's more to life.

This thread is sad. It's the responsibility of the employer to find a way to cover you. The world wont stop because the job that any one of you does isn't done for 2 weeks.

That sounds nice, but you do what you have to do to earn a living. When you're working on commission, if your monthly sales drop, you won't have money to live your life. Life is hard, the workplace is competitive, and if I insist on long vacations, I'll be replaced by someone who doesn't.

We do what we have to do to earn a living.

actually work 3weeks a month wrote:

Self employed so it's easy to schedule two weeks. We usually do a local trip leave Friday night back Sunday night then take a 10 day 9 night- out as early as possible Tuesday thru the weekend then back as late as possible Thursday- as the going away portion. Take another local overnight trip staying Friday night . The local trips tend to be visits to places of interest where friends live-- North Fork LI, and Hudson Valley type backroad stuff.

I recommend the leave Tuesday back Thursday 10 days thing--- plenty of time to see the destination. Enough time to enjoy being off at home You can throw a party, or as I said visit local friends who are just a bit too far away to see often. Homeowners have a weekend to maintain and get to some of the chores.

Funny the self-employed people I have known over the years in general are the worst at taking vacations.