Work Vacations – Do you take yours?

[JoB]

i think we “wet ones” contribute a great deal to the process..

and generally those who are most modest about their contributions contribute the most.

hubby’s job insecurity stems from a couple of things.. he is one of those modest guys who sets impossible goals for himself and achieves them

and the software industry has created some real career setbacks for software engineers when companies and entire industry subsets folded.

we are lucky. hubby was never unemployed for substantial periods of time.. but we did leave the dream house we had just finished remodeling in Vancouver, Washington in the middle of down housing market to move to Minnesota for a job.

thankfully that was followed in another down housing market with a leap back here to Washington…

and we are prospering here.. for the moment.

tho we are not risking all on buying a house again :)

Share This

[seaopgal]

JoB, it makes me wonder … Your husband “sets impossible goals and achieves them,” he is “lucky,” he has “never been unemployed for substantial periods,” he now works at a company with “liberal” vacation policies, and you are “prospering.” He’s worked “60+hours a week for 40+ years” in a “stressful” job. What more does the man need to convince him to take a vacation??? Or to retire for that matter! :)

I’m not trying to put him or you down, or questioning this reality. I’m sincerely interested in your thinking about why it is that even in those fortuitous circumstances, he is reluctant to take more than two days off at a time.

Share This

[waynster]

gee the nice thing is I get 5 weeks of vac a year not including sick leave I stay home a road trip or two I go camping and like theses guys I love a good camp fire scary story lmao…

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2014/08/15#.U_VCVGPLasY

Although it would be cool to see jaws do this lmao

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2014/07/26

Share This

[JoB]

seaopgal..

it’s simple.. just because we are doing well now doesn’t mean we have always done well…

or that we will do well in retirement.

we have takens some substantial hits in the stock market shenanigans and have had to sell homes we invested in during down markets. we are not expecting to inherit a retirement and neither of us bank on social security or current benefits as a solid future..

so he works.

don’t get me wrong.. he finds his work challenging.. which is why he is doing well…

but i think if it was possible to feel financially secure he would retire.

the trip we are taking this winter will include a look at what he thinks he wants his retirement to look like.

we will see.

i don’t think hubby is alone in realizing that the future he thought he had secured for himself is a lot less secure than he had hoped.

Share This

[seaopgal]

Thanks, JoB. Makes sense to me for retirement, no so much for vacation. But I am glad that you have a good one planned, and hope that it will recharge you both for whatever the future brings. Thanks again for sharing your personal situation so openly.

Share This

[JoB]

seaopgal..

hubby generally works on some pretty time critical projects that can’t be easily handed over to another…

in the past.. the timely completion of his projects were critical to product success… to simplify what he did… he wrote the programming brains that controlled the programming brains for automated equipment in microchip factories… and then in medical equipment factories.

he changed industries and direction when we moved to Seattle and has been engaged in the learning curve of his life since then.. a process that has finally peaked and left him feeling less pressured.

these days what he does is less time critical but still not something he can easily turn over to others.

i booked this vacation over a year ago and paid for it without telling him… and then asked him if he was coming along :)

i am so glad he said yes.

Share This

[JanS]

vacations…being self-employed, I complain that my boss is a bitch…no paid vacation, no sick leave, no bennies of any kind (although I do get to set my own hours, and mostly sleep in in the AM). Take time off? I’ve done a lot of that in the last 3+ years…but it certainly was no vacation. Until this past May, when a really good friend treated me to a driving vacation to Hood River, the Gorge, and the Oregon coast, I hadn’t had a real vacation since 1993. If my health means take time off, I do it…if business is slow, I have time off…consider it a staycation :) I do love what I have done for the last 20 years, it was my choice, but I do envy those with company provided bennies, so don’t hardly understand not using vacation time…always wanted to travel more than I have :)

Share This

[Author]

Posts