I was recently on vacation for Thanksgiving. I took a whopping two days off and tacked it onto the long weekend we were given for the holiday. Usually it takes me about a week to decompress from work – even not particularly stressful work (or as not particularly stressful as Ad Agencies can be anyway). In that time I have to remember how to relax and what I enjoy and by the time I do the vacation is over.
I usually also put too much pressure on myself to enjoy my semi-rare days off. “Today I should be happier than all other days! I’m free!” And because of these expectations reality usually falls short. As I should expect. I wasn’t joyous every day I was off of work during this brief vacation. It wasn’t what I expected for the vacation, but I did get my own room which was a luxury I hadn’t anticipated.
While dealing with my lackluster feelings and not remembering what I like to do I started thinking about work and had a hilarious thought: “it’s not so bad. Why do I want to retire anyway? Retire from what? It’s so easy to make money, it’s not very stressful and I can’t remember if I like to do anything outside of work anyway!”
I actually entertained this thinking for a little while. It may have come to me because unlike most vacations I didn’t actually look at my email until I was back at work. I did download it onto my computer as I was leaving for the airport. I thought about downloading the email to read in the air, but then realized that would be annoying to be able to read but not respond to things.
10 minutes into my return to work and I remember in bright flashing colors why this is no way to live. Emails were coming in left and right, people were walking up to interrupt my flow and ask for something or ask a question. By some act of luck 99.9% of the people I work with are lovely – the best people I’ve ever worked with. Nice, respectful, ego-free and hard workers. On that day it took me hours to be able to take care of basic human functions. I didn’t get to go to the bathroom or grab anything to eat until the late afternoon.
There’s barely time to think or do your best work. Sometimes I do have that time at this job – more so than at others I’ve had, but work still dictates my entire life: when I can take vacation and for how long, if I have to disappoint friends by rescheduling plans or missing them completely as I did a week ago, missing dinner with my partner and arriving at home despite it not being very late by NYC standards and feeling like the day is already over. My life is already over. A little dramatic, but that’s how I felt. Hours and days and weeks pass and I have nothing but annoying ads no one wants and spam emails to show for it….oh, and a pile of cash 🙂 but once that pile grows large enough I don’t see why I would want to do corporate work again.
Only 3 years and 10 months remain.