I need a vacation

I work at a company that gives me the standard two week vacation, which is quite nice combined with the holidays and personal time; but I’m not taking my time off. Last year I had two or three unused vacation days. This year since I had to forgo my bike trip I have almost all of my days left. I won’t get to roll them over to next year and I don’t get paid back for them.

About a month ago I started to feel the pinch of overload and I knew I needed to recharge my batteries…but I didn’t take time off. This month is almost half over and I am in the same spot. Don’t get me wrong, I might be really busy, but I still find lots of time to have fun. I just need a break before I tumble down the “I’m burned out” road many people face when it’s been too long since they took a break.

I’ve just become a workaholic over the years and I don’t like the detachment from my office. The catch? I’m not a workaholic. What nonsense am I spilling out now? Well I have the detachment issues with work like a workaholic does, but for almost a year the pride I take in my work and the effort I exert to do my work has fallen drastically. Now I feel guilty. I feel bad when a problem happens and I can’t help, or when someone has to call me and I have to walk them through it. Maybe if I would have done something differently the problem wouldn’t have happened. On top of that, I feel like I don’t deserve my time off because I have taken “time off” while I have been at work. Now that “time off” has caught up to me and everything I fell behind in needs to be finished…right when I need to get out of the office.

the lesson…

Don’t do as I do: do your work at work and keep the non-work stuff to a minimum at work. That way you’ll never feel guilty about leaving work. When you don things, do them right the first time so you don’t have to go back and redo your work. Damn I don’t know where I lost my way along the path, but I’m feeling the pinch.