Oy Vey-Cation! Oy Vey is a Yiddish phrase expressing grief, pain, frustration, or exasperation. Let’s be honest here for a minute, for a lot of people, those words are all synonymous with vacation planning and the act of vacationing itself. Take my family for example. I’m a wanderlust kind of gal. I love vacation and researching new areas to explore but my husband is not a huge fan of vacation. He prefers to either work through his vacation or re-visit the same location repeatedly. I recently tried to figure out why and concluded it is kind of understandable because you must give up a certain lack of control while you are off laying on a beach or traveling to famous monuments. You place yourself in a totally new environment where you must put your trust into complete strangers and some people prefer to stick with what they know to be familiar. Now my husband goes along for the ride because I annoyingly remind him the memories created with his kids will make it all worthwhile, but he really does prefer his everyday routine.
Vacation planning can be daunting because you must figure out where everyone would like to go. If your house is anything like mine, vacation preparation is never a breeze. Trying to accommodate children of various ages that all have very different interests is no simple task. I know a lot of you are thinking a trip to the Magic Kingdom would solve ALL my problems but that kind of vacation, in the middle of summer, is for parents who deserve trophies. In my opinion, those parents should be the Grand Marshal of that parade that marches down Main Street USA. It is going to take way more than faith, trust, and pixie dust to get me there!
After a bit of googling, I realized my husband is not alone in how he feels about vacations. According to a survey done by Allianz Global, a leading travel insurance company, (I should note the survey was done right before the pandemic hit) studies showed that 36 percent of Americans took their last vacation more than two years ago and more than half have not taken a trip in a full year. Keep in mind these results were pre-Covid. They also found that Americans are not using their time off to travel. Further, they discovered the reasons respondents did not want to vacation largely boiled down to finances: 44 percent of respondents said they did not have the money for a vacation, while 19 percent said they didn’t want to spend money on travel, period. When citing other reasons why they would not go on vacation, respondents included “personal obligations outside of work” (20 percent), an unwillingness to take time off from work (12 percent) and the stress and responsibility of having to plan a vacation in the first place (10 percent).
Although financial, professional, and personal obligations may feel like they are piling up, taking time for vacation is important. Findings from a survey of HR managers that the Society for Human Resources Management conducted revealed more than three quarters of the HR managers questioned said employees who use their vacation time are more productive than those who do not.
Whatever your situation may be, evidence shows you should start packing those bags or just enjoy a nice vacation at home. Your boss should thank you for it!
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