On Vacation: Gen Y, You're Doing it Wrong!

According to an article in the latest edition of Entrepreneur Magazine, Gen Y-ers are “Young and Bummed”… and basically unable to take a real vacation.

A Ranstad “Work Watch” Survey of 2,000 employees showed that taking time off for vacation was stressful for people between the ages of 18 and 34.

• Over a third of respondents said that it was difficult to unplug and give out work responsibilities.
• Over 50 percent stressed about preparing a boss or co-worker for their time out of the office.
• 14 percent were upset that no one missed them while they were gone.

The first two stats are interesting, and on some level, I can relate. The third stat is just sad.

I have to admit that going on vacation has always been challenging for me. Summers at PR agencies in DC are usually slow in terms of work (or so I was told). This summer has been anything but. With the current economy, you can’t really complain. When people ask me how things are going, I generally say “Busy, but good.”

Eventually, I got to a point when I needed a break, not just from work, but from DC. After trying to find the perfect time for vacation (which does not exist), I just decided to disappear from the District for a week. Once I was on the road, I thought: “This feels great. I should do this every year…wait normal people do do this every year…it’s a vacation…it’s healthy.”

Even though I was in the land of REAL pizza and the Bronx Bombers, I still found a way to cheat. I kept some responsibilities for myself because I thought I could do it quickly, it would be easier than transitioning the project for one week, the client/team wouldn’t know the new person….and the list of excuses goes on. I snuck into the NY office for a new business meeting that I convinced myself I just could not miss AND I committed the ultimate vacation sin – checking email.

Have you allowed (or forced) yourself take a real vacation recently? How did that go?

Maybe I broke a few vacation commandments, but I did manage to enjoy my time away and get the recharge I was looking for. No need to completely unplug this time around…I’ll save that for when I’m on a beach like this.

The only thing I’ll be doing from here is sending a twitpic or two…