Slashdot Mirror
Disconnecting Completely While On Vacation?
vonsneerderhooten asks: "This summer, I took a week-long vacation, left my cell phone at home and enjoyed the liberation of being completely disconnected from the (working) world. Recently, I came upon an article stating that many people don't take vacations longer than a long weekend. Worse still, a majority are worrying about work, calling the office and checking e-mail. How far removed are you when on vacation? To what lengths will you go to make yourself (un)available?"
I think what usually prevents people from doing that is that most people do not receive 50 vacation days per year, which is what would approximately be required to take four 2-3 week vacations every year. Most people don't even get half that number of days, especially not until they either a) reach the upper echelons, or b) work at the same company for years/decades.
Lucky you!
Is this the fabled 2 year buffer in the bank account? I don't know any one person who doesn't have to work the arse off to make enough money to live. I agree that some people spend more money than needed on non essential items, but competition in the market is so great that even cutting those out (internet/tv/phone) makes little difference. If I got rid of non-essentials, I would cut my (admittedly higher than average) income by little more than £100/m That would take me approx 18 years to make that two year buffer.
There are some eye opening statistics here http://www.poverty.org.uk/summary/key_facts.htm
Unless you earn the top brass money, you have to live as the cash flows in.
Back on topic... The above is related. People put so much emphasis on work because it is their lifeline to living. If you can afford to let your work ethic slip, then you either don't care about income, or are too rich to worry. When I go away I have to at least check my phone messages once a day, even with the trained monkey in my place things can still go wrong. It's a tragic fact of society that things need to be fixed yesterday, unfortunately this seeps into holiday time.
My 2p
Signature v3.0, now with 42% less memory usage.
I've had a real problem with this; I definitely feel my anxiety level increase whenever I am "disconnected" for any length of time. Case in point: my honeymoon.
;-)
We honeymooned in Hawaii (Maui), and while there I stayed up on email via my Treo, corresponding with people back at the office. I took great care to make sure that I did this while my wife was asleep, or at other times when we weren't together. Still, when my boss discovered that I had been reviewing code for my team while on my honeymoon he immediately had my phone's data service disconnected. At first, I was rather frustrated at being cut off, but after about 24 hours I just left the damn phone in my suitcase. In the end, my vacation was better for it.
Disconnecting is definitely a tough thing to do for extremely connected people, but it's well worth it if you can manage the first 24 hours of information drought. I was more relaxed, less concerned with time; basically, everything that I should've been doing while on vacation in the first place.
Of course, I also had 2300 emails when I got back.
Regards,
Bryan Porter
Reading the comments here about turning off your cellphone, not checking email, etc., makes me wonder if there are any system administrators reading this thread.
My peace of mind is dependent on 16 servers in a server room. If all of those are working, then it's my executive director's wireless connection I have to worry about. In fact, anyone at work with a laptop is bound to have a network "problem" once a week, usually having to do with switching between home, hotel, work, etc.
Some day, I'll find a reliable "number two" person, but until then, it's 24-7. Real vacations are a distant memory -- 20 years ago during college summers.
You put that in quotes, but for many people, living in used mobile homes (how old are they if they're fully deprecated?) is substandard living.
Oldest is 1987 with an energy efficiency rating 100% better than a typical newer tract home. Newest is around 1993 or 1992 (can't recall). Some I paid ZERO for (walk-aways -- people had to move and I offered to get them out of the lot lease).
The key here is the definition of living. If you like being around your home and plan on retiring in it (not ON its future value), buy a "house." I personally like the freedom of changing if I need to, or if business/life warrants it. I also do not appreciate housing prices going up over time -- it is a game of inflation, not growing value.
Being "future-focused" shouldn't have to mean stocking up on gold, food and ammo and waiting for civilization to collapse.
Why do people sometimes think that is how I live? For me, future focused means trying to manage my time today so I have more time tomorrow to do what I want. I look at an efficient time preference as the #1 sign of wealth. I know that in my 20s, I could party it up. In my 30s, the body starts to slow down. Hit 40s, and death starts knocking (and even occurs for some). The 50s is when the body really starts giving out, and when you lose the efficiency in the market (I do believe that 30 year olds are often worth more to a market than 50 year olds because of adaptability and recent experience over lifetime of stuck-in-the-old-way experience). In the 60s, you're really feeling the heat (my mom hits 60 this year, my dad is 66, and they both are much slower than a decade ago). I have to balance my best work years with my best non-work years -- that means looking to the future as a focus for what I CAN do and what I'd WANT to do.
I'm sorry, but paying off a home for 37 years is not ownership, it is slavery to a smarter party. On a typical US$300,000 house with $50,000 down (most don't have that), you pay about US$19,000 in mortgage (6.5% fixed). US$16,200 of that is interest. Over the first ten years, you'll pay almost US$150,000 in interest alone. How is that ownership? Considering a 29% mortgage-to-gross ratio (which isn't standard, today), you'd have to pay US$65,500 to afford that loan, so in the first 10 years, over 2 years of your life is JUST in interest -- 20% of those work years. No thanks. That, to me, sounds fairly substandard in terms of freedom from stress and frustration.
It is no surprise to me that a lot of marriage problems start off with financial matters. It is no surprise to me that foreclosures are up 100-200% YOY in many regions. It is no surprise to me that many people lie about their equity-to-debt-to-income ratios. I'm not embarrassed about where I live, in fact I am proud that I can actually LIVE in terms of balancing work, recreation, family and faith. I'm pretty sure I give an equal amount to each, which to me gives me the stress-free life. The fact that there is savings on top of that, and some ability to wager some market risks (business ideas, etc), I think it is a super-standard way to live.
I'm not saying EVERYONE should live this way, I'm not saying it is the best way to live, but from the horror stories I hear from 90% of my friends and (younger) family, I can't understand why everyone wants to live the way they're living.