14 July 2009

Why vacation sucks

At least for those who lack the privileges of the golden class for which vacation is an alleged birthright:

  1. You don't work, you don't get paid, per the Rule of Corporatist Society #1. (Technically this doesn't apply to me, but I like to live and act as if it does. No point attempting to live any better than your loser brethern, or the Tree of Dishonesty will start sprouting from my ears.)
  2. Nothing more pleasant than staring at the blank wall of your apartment all week, since spending $$$$ money on some insipid excursion to "paradise" is out of the question in my semi-impoverished situation.
  3. My car is not too old, but it is gradually aging and I have a morbid terror of being stranded somewhere with an inoperable vehicle. This does much to keep me homebound.
  4. How then would I be able to get to work if this happened?
  5. The costs of alternatively renting a car approaches extortion. More profits for less effort in any other industry, I cannot contemplate.
  6. The thrills of virtual travel via online means, with its vastly reduced cost, is greatly underrated.
  7. While you're out vacating, the work doesn't stop; it continues to accumulate and there is just twice as much to do upon return. 
  8. Absence at work merely exposes the shit shod quality of my "training" of subordinates who could not even begin to approach the usual quality of work.
  9. Work = social life, at least for losers like myself. No work = total isolation from other people.
  10. Work = interests; vacation = boredom. Or watching a week's worth of All My Children. Not a whole lot of difference there.
  11. Daytime television sucks, what between Dapper Drew, ABC Daytime, and P&G's open disinvestment from daytime (the effects of which are visible daily). I used to enjoy it but no longer.
  12. I dislike disruption of routine, even if that routine is boring and uninspired.
  13. Additionally, if I'm not at work when I know everyone else is, I become extremely nervous, because shit always happens when I'm away which ends up making me look bad without me there to hide or spin it to reduce my complete humiliation.
  14. If my family knew I had a week free to myself, they would immediately put me to work painting their house. Not my idea on how to spend a week of rest.
  15. I'm still going to be tired when I return to work. It's not the need for a few days' rest; it's the job itself. I need a job which fits my feeble skill sets better.
  16. We already get regular vacations. They're called "weekends."
  17. Though anticipating time off can be fun (at times), when vacation ends I feel tremendously depressed. Better to avoid the whole thing in the first place.
  18. My boss, who must approve the leave requests, would probably not permit me to take vacation in the first place, since I am such an "essential" employee.
  19. As a public servant, I have the ability to accumulate leave and sick time over the course of my employment. (Gotta love the unearned privileges they give us bureaucRATS.) Given the high probability that I will be fired in the next few years and the low probability of finding another job that isn't janitorial or food service work, this leave time is insurance against being faced with debts I can no longer pay upon cessation of regular income. That accumulated leave is like deferred income; I could pay down all my outstanding debts with it were I to come into it to-day. So it behooves me to use as little of the time as possible.
  20. I might enjoy vacation so much, I might decide to never return to work again or make other disruptive and ultimately stupid and futile life changes. Better to eliminate the temptation while it stands.

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