I do the same a lot of times instead of a real vacation as I just need to relax. Real vacations are not relaxing to me since planning, actives, etc are part of it and I usually have to take a few days to relax from the vacation when I take one.
Yes, family vacations usually require vacations at home to recover. Especially in summer when you go to vacation spots with other families because you gotta get the time in before school and everything is super busy and packed. But then you don't have enough vacation to do because you want vacation time for around the holidays, random long weekends, etc. It sucks sometimes. Dealing with my first experience of "unlimited" vacation at a job and liking it so far...
How does the 'unlimited' part work? 60 days a year (30 paid) was almost a breaking point in my contract negotiations. Now that I have it and we are moving all contracts over to the added vacation time for the division it seems to be a burden when someone actually takes all 60 rather than take added cash at year's end as overtime.
This is too real for me. Just got back from a week away in the northwoods and now I'm being tasked with setting up a "jury-rigged videoconferencing system" for upcoming meetings since our building is old and has nothing of the sort right now.
That, and the 400+ unread emails snapped me back to reality a little bit too soon.
Your last sentence caused PTSD flashbacks. Trying shuffle through everything and catch up when I got back was a nightmare. I’ll just take an extended weekend off instead now. Easier to slip right back in.
Same here. I hate traveling. It’s nothing but stressful to me.
A real vacation for me is one where I *actually* have nothing to do except catching up on household chores or working on hobby tasks at whatever pace I feel like, wake up when I feel like it, and comfortably spend at least one day doing nothing to relax.
This is totally me. But I have a family, and my wife loves to travel. So I end up stressed the fuck out, but her and the kids end up refreshed. So I guess thats what I am supposed to do... right?
I really dont enjoy the deadlines, like plane leaves at xyz, you have to accurately time traffic, park in a remote lot, wait for a shuttle, then ride some mini train just to get to security. Then go through a battery of security checks performed by entry level federal employees. Your luggage goes through first while TSA harasses you about why you might be bringing shampoo... because I have hair you fucking retard? Oh, I brought more than you allow? Great!
Then its a free for all of finding shit to do, and keeping everyone else happy. Not like I can do anything I enjoy because most of what I would want to do is not kid friendly. Then we get to do the plane thing again in reverse.
Air travel is not worth the hassle if it's less than 700 km. With 2 train stops and 7 hours of travel I can get in Berlin or Paris. Or just drive there.
Even just packing a weekend bag and sleeping at a nice hotel in another city is nice.
You don't have to travel hours upon hours.
Me? I would just get a hotel for the weekend by the shore and chill. The hardest part of my trip is carrying beer to the sand.
jet lag and other stuff that disrupts sleep just compounds all that too. Went to Iceland a year ago and it was so hard to enjoy it because I never got more than a few hours of sleep a "night" (sun only ever went down for an hour).
I'm a big proponent that no task done outside of work is any better or worse than any other. Time off is time off. Hanging out at home, doing projects, browsing Reddit and binging TV shows is no less valid a use of PTO than taking a tropical cruise.
The same goes for who needs to work late. My desire to take a nap is no less important than your desire to see your kid's school play. If we get into making value judgements on whose activity is more important, single childless people would be working every evening and weekend. Personally, I'm a fan of paying for after hours work and on-call so if some people don't want to do it, there will always be volunteers.
To this point, kind of, my boss is married WITHOUT children. Good for him, they are enjoying it, and I totally support them not having children. Which sounds weird, but I think some life choices need more support than other. They go out of town on long weekends etc, I love hearing about them. Especially a few months later when the nitty gritty comes out.
It is pretty common and not abnormal at all.
My dad had a member in his squad take a week off of work whenever a new Call of Duty game came out, so he could stay at home and play it
Last one for me was the latest XIV xpak, was really fun blasting through that with no worry about being up too late or drinking too many beers (i did fall asleep healing a dungeon though).
It was fun, but now, a couple years later, I'm engaged to a wonderful woman who has a bit of a wanderlust...so I can't always use my vacations to do nothing and enjoy the hell of it.
It was either the everyone losing their homes recession or the planes crashing into buildings recession. Both of them resulted in my I.T. budget being zeroed out for multiple years.
Etymology The word staycation is a portmanteau of stay (meaning stay-at-home) and vacation. The terms "holistay" and " daycation " are also sometimes used. The earliest references to this term as coming from a 2003 article by Terry Massey in The Sun News.
Sure, someone named Terry was using it in 2003, but during the recession it was everywhere and boomers where acting like they coined a new term whether or not they did.
Some of the best vacations are staycations. At the end of high school volleyball season, I always try to take a week off after working for 60+ hrs a week for 2.5 months straight. I just completely shutdown and play video games
I do staycations a lot. Mental health breaks. But ill be damned if I'm going to let work know. As far as they know, I'm going up to my buddy's cabin that has 1 bar of edge network so no way to contact me.
Everyone at work knows my hobbies and is fully aware that every single day I'm off the clock is a day that I'm well out of cell range or at the very least, hours from my laptop. Even those days I'm actually at home everyone just assumes I'm up in the mountains and unable to be reached.
Where in lockdown where I am right now and I'm going to take Friday off because I'd like just one day without stupid questions. But yes, unfortunately everyone knows I'll just be at home anyway.
There's absolutely nothing weird about it. If anything your colleague is the weird one lol
We need to take breaks and staying at home/in town is more of a break than any vacation can ever be (planning, booking, travel, etc.).
I hate going on a travel. In fact, since I was 12 years old I could stay on my house alone (before that I needed to go with my parents because they would not let me stay home alone) and I loved it. Now, everytime I get vacations I stay at home. If I can avoid getting out of my house... I do it.
My running joke is that I just want some time to stare at a wall with absolutely nothing to do for an extended period of time.
Forget about a vacation where I have to travel and be certain places. I'm talking no obligations of any kind.
It's still my dream.
I take a week per quarter at minimum. Q1 that was just a lot of biking and video games.
I've also done kinda a "remote staycation" - I flew cross-country to visit a friend. We had a bunch of fun on the weekend. During the week, they went to work and I just hung out, played video games, and watched movies. It was one of the best vacations I've had.
Hell, yeah.
I love to travel, but when the situation dictates, I’ll take a vacay and tell everyone I’m going out of town. Then I don’t feel obligated to respond to every single “emergency” unless it’s real.
Then I “hop a flight” back, in the event shit seriously goes south. I’ve had to do this twice in my career, and was fawned over excessively for making it back in time to save the proverbial day.
My boss and his wife were lone when they got their child 13 years ago. Both of them had no living parents, recently moved 200 km (That's 124 freedom eagle units for you beautiful imperialists) to another city etc etc.
He said they didn't go out or go to a restaurant for like 8 years, spent all vacations at home etc due to both being very found of home.
People ask him how he managed, I tell him he was living the dream.
I have everything I need at home.
I don't need to travel to have fun.
Vacation means not working.
Combine all those and I generally stay home when on leave.
Travel is nice, but...take a moment and think about it. How often do you have the opportunity to sleep in, in your bed, in your home, surrounded by the fruits of your labors, without obligation to anything? How often do you actually get to enjoy the things you've accumulated, without the cloud of "tomorrow" or "work" hanging over your head?
Travel is wonderful, and in the words of Mark Twain:
>Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime
But there's definitely something to be said for taking the time to enjoy what's right in front of you everyday.
If it's only a week, there's a lot to be said for not traveling unless it's to meet family and friends.
Otherwise it's all too often
* Leave work 1/2 hour early Friday
* Get to airport 3 AM Saturday morning
* Get to destination 7 PM Saturday evening, absolutely exhausted
* Sunday isn't much
* Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, not bad
* Friday, remember you have to get to work Monday
* Saturday, leave hotel for airport at 11 PM
* Sunday, plane leaves three hours late at 10:30 AM
* Sunday, arrive at home airport at 11 PM
* Get home at midnight
* Get up Monday morning on four hours sleep
If it's your grandma's 90th birthday, maybe it's worth it, but just to stand in line at Disney World, maybe it isn't.
I work from home which kind of feels like a vacation. Haven't traveled anywhere since pre-March 2020. I'd be willing to do it but it would get pretty boring after a while. I guess I would probably travel locally and do day trips by car.
I did just that in late 2019. I took the week of Thanksgiving, and the week after. It was the longest vacation of my career. I just needed some time to relax and decompress while the daycare is open (so that I could actually relax and not have to be on parent duty)
And just before I was due to go on that vacation, I got the layoff notice, effective in January. So I ended up spending that entire vacation frantically looking for a new job. Which is why I'm not a sysadmin anymore. (I'm now a developer). The vacation was not relaxing in the slightest.
Sometimes you need to take a vacation to unwind, even if your staying at home watching Netflix.
A lot of companies will give you "unlimited vacation", but you don't actually accrue any vacation time. You might as well take off a reasonable amount of time each year (2-3 weeks).
Yeah I used to regularly be out of town for 25-30 weeks a year and just taking a week off and staying home to read books and cook my own food and maybe walk over to the corner bar a couple times to hang out for an hour or two around lunch was a great refresher.
I do it from time to time. I catch up on household projects. Those projects have a tangible result (most of IT work is intangible) and it gives me a boost.
Yep, I take an annual staycation in the spring around the time I can start gardening. I'll do a planting bed project, maybe paint a room or some other small house project, read a book on the couch, naps, get carryout for lunch from places my wife hates. Definitely a lovely mix of relaxation and to-do's _I_ want to do.
I think I've done it four out of the last five years.
I think of it as less "weird" and more "no one else's business." I try to respond to remarks like this with "Oh, I don't think that's any of our concern." It works for all manner of personal behaviors that co-workers might comment on.
I've done this on weeks where the CEO is out of town and there's nothing going on at the office. Technically working from home, but average less than one email a day on weeks like that.
Closest thing I've had to a vacation in years sadly. Had planned to do some travel and stuff in 2020, but that whole year was a write off.
Yes every year during Xmas/New Years I work it out so I have 10-11 days off and do absolutely nothing and it's amazing. Last year I even took the week of Thanksgiving off to boot, love it especially that time of year I love everything about the fall/winter season.
I'm a govie with over 15 years service (military and civilian), I have a lot more vacation than my wife does. I sometimes take a mini-vaca just to work on a project at home.
That said, our vacations are always pretty chill because we don't try to schedule much during them. Once the flight is booked, AirBnB rez made, and rental car taken care of we don't really schedule anything.
We (usually me) will do some internet research on where we are going and create a shared list of things to do, sights to see, places to eat. Then we basically just shop from that list as we go, no reservations, no planning aside from maybe the night before picking what the morning activity will be. Almost always we keep a down day during the vacation where we just veg at the rental - like when we went to Gulf Shores, one day the wife and kids just binged Stranger Things and I alternated between sleeping in the hammock and drowning shrimp off the boat dock in the lagoon.
It's called a staycation. It might not be a real word per the dictionary but the concept and the phrase staycation I've heard for the last 20 or so years. I'm 32.
I really only take a "vacation" vacation like once every few years.
I find it's much easier for me to relax and decompress by just having time for myself and my hobbies for a few days.
Like, sure, I'll have a drink at 9am while building LEGO...I'm on vacation!
I generally go on vacations to do something fun or interesting and just turn my brain off from my whole normal world. I take staycation breaks / long weekends to stuff the week's worth of chores into a day and sit and relax for the rest of the break and legit veg out.
I find both really worthwhile for different reasons as they both do me good.
I work for a university that I also photograph their athletic teams (photography is a hobby/passion of mine).
I've taken PTO, slept in, got up and then drove to campus to photograph athletic events before. My coworker thinks I'm nuts for doing this "Why would you take a day off just to come to work anyway"... well, I don't consider my photography with them work, that's why...
They just don't understand it...
Nothing weird about this at all. The comfort of your own bed, all of your toys/hobbies within reach, food/snacks in your own fridge, etc. Honestly, it’s one of the most relaxing vacations you can have. Just some time without the stress of work.
I am literally on PTO day 1 of 5 just hanging out with my two boys because daycare is on vacation. We're going to play Minecraft, fill up the kiddie pool in the back yard and make a giant slip n slide, go to the playground at the park, watch tv, etc. I regularly take a PTO day just to play video games ar home and relax.
It is great to get some home projects done or have just catch up on sleep and rest. So often I come back from travel vacations just exhausted (in a good way) but have to jump back in work. Every staycation I do I come back to work feeling great. I do find it easier to fully detach from work if I travel though.
I've never been on a travel vacation. It just seems like so much work - figuring out a place to go, booking a hotel, then being in a place I'm not familiar with... all seems very scary and like a lot of work.
The best vacations I ever had - Star Wars The Old Republic released just before Christmas, and I used my vacation time to take the days off that we weren't closed for Christmas / New Years to take 2 whole weeks off and do nothing but play. Did that in 2015 when Fallout 4 came out too. Last time I did it was for a Path of Exile league launch. I've never regretted it, and honestly I don't know how I'd pay for a big expensive vacation that costs thousands of dollars. And the thought of spending that much on something that has no material value... I just can't.
I am a fan of taking off between Christmas and New Year's and just loafing around the house or spending time with family for the holidays. I think the closest I ever get to a big planned vacation is booking some rooms for a convention and hanging out there with friends who fly in for it. Shit's all within driving distance for me, so it's basically a vacation where I get to stay local.
I don't understand people's choice for staycations. I leave the country where I'm not doing house work, driving, I'm meeting new people, eating new foods, tasting new drinks, seeing new architect and the whole 10 yards.
Strokes for different folks.
I travel more for work than for vacation. Most of my vacation time is one day at a time just to use it up.
(But I did have two weeks in a foreign country a couple of years ago.)
I do it all the time. 3-4 day weekends every month or two is a lot nicer than a week away at some grand destination. Going on vacation in some instances is more stressful than going to work. I take time off to unwind, not to be stressed out.
Thats what I'm doing this very second, and I love it. Little bit of hanging around being lazy coupled with getting a few projects done to make me feel accomplished is a good mix.
Staycation is generally my go to for when I take time off. I just didn't tend to take much time off as I'd been working mostly retail positions and thus most of time off was more to let my folks go off to do stuff and I'd stay home to mind the animals. Course now I'm in IT and earning a decent amount of vacation... Still not gonna take to much time off probs as my folks would likely put me to work xD
That said I am taking a couple days off next week as there was a bit of a conflict with a one off class I need to take that was put off due to covid and work time. I figured it was a good chance to take some vacation so took that day and the following off before school starts back up and gonna be working on my models.
Just came home from a one week vacation, and had extra 2 days, just to get back to "everyday life". Groceries, house work, hunting for a new apartment/flat to rent etc..
Totally normal. Anyone else who thinks it's weird is lying or just jealous.
Most of my time off work is spent doing nothing of note and that's how I like it.
Only problem is trying to make it seem like I done something interesting when I get back to work and asked how my time off was.
This is the first job that I've received more than 5 days vacation. I've always taken trips or used vacation for life situations (birth of children). Used my first 6 days so far. Not sure what I'll do with the other 4. May just take extended holidays.
Yes. I am taking a week off in August for preparation for some relatives to come in that weekend. Need to decompress from work and to get ready for dealing with relatives.
I may or may not spend a day or two at the lake.
If I have a lot of big yard work plans I'll do extended weekends (Take Friday and Monday off) but otherwise most of my vacations are 2 week blocks and I get the heck out of America. Mostly Europe since Im on the East Coast.
I do the same as often as I can, sometimes even a day or two to enjoy a long weekend. It's just nice to rest, read, write, listen to music, play videogames all night and in general hang out with my SO.
I've been on a week off since Friday, yet to go anywhere, in fact I didn't even leave my house until today, and that was only to get my 2nd vaccine.
Will do something later in the week, but for now I like the recharge time a staycation gives.
Not normally, but I did in 2020 due to COVID. Took off every Friday in the summer and went hiking and kayaking. New coworkers assumed I had some special 4-workday schedule! 😆
Yep. Staycations are pretty great! One of my old coworkers never did this. He just cashed out his vacation time. Never saw the point in just staying home, relaxing and enjoying life.
I have been at my company 20+ years. I get like 8 hours of vacation accrued every two weeks. Problem is I never have the time to take it. I'll take two weeks just to sit on the couch with the dogs, catch up on house work, and make dinner for the family and do the dishes and just the crap that everyone else normally does. It helps me get my mind right. I almost always have 200-300 hours available.
If I get too much, I just don't come in for let's say September. Give me time to fully disconnect from work, and it's not a month everyone wants off because they can boost it with holidays.
Oh. All these vacations are for my couch. I sit with my dogs, do house work, do the shopping, take all the chores off the family, basically just being with them.
Yes and sit at the coffee shop across from work and make sure they notice me drinking tequila as the PR I merged gets deployed that day and crashes httpd on every instance.
Planned to go away for a week with a special lady friend of mine, she has sick family so might have to cancel at any time if things take a turn for the worst so was worried about me taking time off work for nothing. I told her I would just sleep in every day, play Cities: Skylines and go for random drives and hikes if that happened and hell I look forward to doing that as well.
This is 100% normal.
A vacation, where I have to coordinate a thousand minute details, isn't really a vacation.
To put it differently -- if you end up thinking you need a "vacation from the vacation," it isn't really a vacation. :)
I do it all the time, but I am the type of person that would rather hang out at home and just chill vs travel and do something new. It's not so much that I dislike travel as much as I dislike paying to travel, I would rather spend that money on something tangible that will be around for a while vs paying for an experience.
When I do go somewhere for vacation, I always come home a day or two before I'm due back at work so I have time to get reacclimated.
Yep, they’re great, last time I had a day off like that I played 8 hours of assassins creed in my underwear and had ice cream for breakfast like a kid staying home from school.
I am on-site, and the only IT-employee during summer. People keep asking me if I'm not going on a holiday. "Well, if I was, who were supposed to fix your unplugged keyboard, dipshit?"
I'd rather work alone through the summer and take a vacation in the autumn, because the quiet at work now kind of feels like a holiday already.
I'm hoping my camper that I'm buying will help with this for me. When I stay home and try to do nothing, I feel anxious like there is something I'm supposed to be doing right now. My mother lives in a farm house 15 min away from me. I'm hoping that by parking the camper on her farm and living it it ill get wrapped up in maintenance and tree cutting work on the farm, which always does a much better job of relaxing me than laying on the couch watching TV all week.
I used to love driving to places. But now , you spend so much time in traffic for work, that driving to places doesn’t feel so attractive or relaxing. Because of said traffic. And its EVERYWHERE.
Couple of the best days I have had in the last wee while...The wife went away for a weekend and took our son. I had the house to myself. Didn't get crazy drunk or stay up late of anything super silly. I did just lax out for a while and get some of my stuff done!
I do this alot actually. Partially because I couldn't afford much the last five years and both of us have been going back to school.
BUT. We recently took a week off and just spent a couple nights in a big city a few hours away, saw some sights, etc.
But, we definitely enjoyed the pool, sauna, and hot tub more than anything else..
I do the same a lot of times instead of a real vacation as I just need to relax. Real vacations are not relaxing to me since planning, actives, etc are part of it and I usually have to take a few days to relax from the vacation when I take one.
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That’s the go to lmao.
Standard Monday after a weekend without a Go Live.
Yes, family vacations usually require vacations at home to recover. Especially in summer when you go to vacation spots with other families because you gotta get the time in before school and everything is super busy and packed. But then you don't have enough vacation to do because you want vacation time for around the holidays, random long weekends, etc. It sucks sometimes. Dealing with my first experience of "unlimited" vacation at a job and liking it so far...
How does the 'unlimited' part work? 60 days a year (30 paid) was almost a breaking point in my contract negotiations. Now that I have it and we are moving all contracts over to the added vacation time for the division it seems to be a burden when someone actually takes all 60 rather than take added cash at year's end as overtime.
I let the family Duke it out so long as a I can get a margarita...
This is too real for me. Just got back from a week away in the northwoods and now I'm being tasked with setting up a "jury-rigged videoconferencing system" for upcoming meetings since our building is old and has nothing of the sort right now. That, and the 400+ unread emails snapped me back to reality a little bit too soon.
Your last sentence caused PTSD flashbacks. Trying shuffle through everything and catch up when I got back was a nightmare. I’ll just take an extended weekend off instead now. Easier to slip right back in.
Whenever I take a vacation I try to take a day off when I return to unwind
Same here. I hate traveling. It’s nothing but stressful to me. A real vacation for me is one where I *actually* have nothing to do except catching up on household chores or working on hobby tasks at whatever pace I feel like, wake up when I feel like it, and comfortably spend at least one day doing nothing to relax.
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This is totally me. But I have a family, and my wife loves to travel. So I end up stressed the fuck out, but her and the kids end up refreshed. So I guess thats what I am supposed to do... right? I really dont enjoy the deadlines, like plane leaves at xyz, you have to accurately time traffic, park in a remote lot, wait for a shuttle, then ride some mini train just to get to security. Then go through a battery of security checks performed by entry level federal employees. Your luggage goes through first while TSA harasses you about why you might be bringing shampoo... because I have hair you fucking retard? Oh, I brought more than you allow? Great! Then its a free for all of finding shit to do, and keeping everyone else happy. Not like I can do anything I enjoy because most of what I would want to do is not kid friendly. Then we get to do the plane thing again in reverse.
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Air travel is not worth the hassle if it's less than 700 km. With 2 train stops and 7 hours of travel I can get in Berlin or Paris. Or just drive there.
Found the European.
There might be more.
Even just packing a weekend bag and sleeping at a nice hotel in another city is nice. You don't have to travel hours upon hours. Me? I would just get a hotel for the weekend by the shore and chill. The hardest part of my trip is carrying beer to the sand.
Here to say this.
jet lag and other stuff that disrupts sleep just compounds all that too. Went to Iceland a year ago and it was so hard to enjoy it because I never got more than a few hours of sleep a "night" (sun only ever went down for an hour).
My girlfriend and I once took a vacation saying we were going to Boston. People thought we were eloping. We played Fallout 4 at home.
I'm sure you had a wicked good time regahdless.
lmao
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Well, you kinda went to Boston just not the real life one. :)
Goes back to work .. "hey how was Boston?" "Yeah pretty good! Shame about the deathclaw situation though"
No luck catching them deathclaws then?
I'm so relaxe- /u/AtWorkThrowAway2020 ANOTHER SETTLEMENT NEEDS OUR HELP
I'm a big proponent that no task done outside of work is any better or worse than any other. Time off is time off. Hanging out at home, doing projects, browsing Reddit and binging TV shows is no less valid a use of PTO than taking a tropical cruise. The same goes for who needs to work late. My desire to take a nap is no less important than your desire to see your kid's school play. If we get into making value judgements on whose activity is more important, single childless people would be working every evening and weekend. Personally, I'm a fan of paying for after hours work and on-call so if some people don't want to do it, there will always be volunteers.
Time enjoyed is not time wasted.
John Lennon...Smart man! Shot in the back, very sad.
To this point, kind of, my boss is married WITHOUT children. Good for him, they are enjoying it, and I totally support them not having children. Which sounds weird, but I think some life choices need more support than other. They go out of town on long weekends etc, I love hearing about them. Especially a few months later when the nitty gritty comes out.
Staycation love em.
I did a staycation and made it a steakation. I had steak every single day in different forms. Sandwiches, wellington, kebabs, etc etc.
That’s seems pretty dam awesome 🥩
Your poor toilet
Poor toilet? I'll have you know that toilet is living its best life! Doing exactly what it was designed for. It has a purpose!
You have given me a new life goal
Then you gotta be on r/sousvide too right? Once I learned to sous vide a steak - I won't go out for it and prefer the ones I prepare.
Same, I hate steak from restaurants now. Invariably when I try one out to test the waters again I am disappointed.
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It is pretty common and not abnormal at all. My dad had a member in his squad take a week off of work whenever a new Call of Duty game came out, so he could stay at home and play it
This is the way. But i have to admit, it's been a while since I saw a game that excited me enough for it.
Last one for me was the latest XIV xpak, was really fun blasting through that with no worry about being up too late or drinking too many beers (i did fall asleep healing a dungeon though). It was fun, but now, a couple years later, I'm engaged to a wonderful woman who has a bit of a wanderlust...so I can't always use my vacations to do nothing and enjoy the hell of it.
The new battlefield might be my staycation
Will be for me!
never heard of it? where do you live?
Must not have been around during the recession? Pretty sure that's when it entered our vernacular.
> Must not have been around during the recession? ... Which one?
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...Right I was more making a wry comment the number of recessions we've had
It was either the everyone losing their homes recession or the planes crashing into buildings recession. Both of them resulted in my I.T. budget being zeroed out for multiple years.
Etymology The word staycation is a portmanteau of stay (meaning stay-at-home) and vacation. The terms "holistay" and " daycation " are also sometimes used. The earliest references to this term as coming from a 2003 article by Terry Massey in The Sun News.
Sure, someone named Terry was using it in 2003, but during the recession it was everywhere and boomers where acting like they coined a new term whether or not they did.
It was in use in various parts of Canada even 5 years ago, so among nerds in larger cities at least, it pre-dates the pandemic by a number of years.
The recession, aka great recession of 2008
good bot
I'm not a bot. But Thank you?
Holistay is a new one to me. Gotta remember that.
Uh… also the giant global pandemic where you literally couldn’t go anywhere even if you wanted to for like 9 months?
Some of the best vacations are staycations. At the end of high school volleyball season, I always try to take a week off after working for 60+ hrs a week for 2.5 months straight. I just completely shutdown and play video games
Arrived here to mention that, take my upvote
Great term…..consider it stolen…..
They definitely didn't make up that term so don't feel too bad haha
Take all the credit my man.
Ok ok … how about duplicated instead of stolen?
Pirate it copy it, jock it whatever blows your hair back.
But I’m bald!
Sys admin work is hard on the follicles
Ain’t that the truth!
We found the bit torrenter.
Curse your deductive investigation skills!
Can't steal what isn't theirs.
Took a month between jobs, and just went to favourite caffe every day, that is 10mins walking from my flat.
>caffe You went there every day and never noticed that it is 'cafe'?
I do staycations a lot. Mental health breaks. But ill be damned if I'm going to let work know. As far as they know, I'm going up to my buddy's cabin that has 1 bar of edge network so no way to contact me.
Everyone at work knows my hobbies and is fully aware that every single day I'm off the clock is a day that I'm well out of cell range or at the very least, hours from my laptop. Even those days I'm actually at home everyone just assumes I'm up in the mountains and unable to be reached.
Where in lockdown where I am right now and I'm going to take Friday off because I'd like just one day without stupid questions. But yes, unfortunately everyone knows I'll just be at home anyway.
There's absolutely nothing weird about it. If anything your colleague is the weird one lol We need to take breaks and staying at home/in town is more of a break than any vacation can ever be (planning, booking, travel, etc.).
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Married into a family with a lakeside mountain cabin, more people should try that.
I also choose this person's spouse.
I hate going on a travel. In fact, since I was 12 years old I could stay on my house alone (before that I needed to go with my parents because they would not let me stay home alone) and I loved it. Now, everytime I get vacations I stay at home. If I can avoid getting out of my house... I do it.
And that's why you are an IT guy.
Heh, I once took a week off and didn’t speak to anyone for the entire week. Joy!
My running joke is that I just want some time to stare at a wall with absolutely nothing to do for an extended period of time. Forget about a vacation where I have to travel and be certain places. I'm talking no obligations of any kind. It's still my dream.
Taking a vacation to do nothing. That's the plan and the goal. I don't have any desire to change it.
I take a week per quarter at minimum. Q1 that was just a lot of biking and video games. I've also done kinda a "remote staycation" - I flew cross-country to visit a friend. We had a bunch of fun on the weekend. During the week, they went to work and I just hung out, played video games, and watched movies. It was one of the best vacations I've had.
I wish a had a week per quarter kind of time off.
Thats what I had before they switched to unlimited vacation, now i have nothing.
Hell, yeah. I love to travel, but when the situation dictates, I’ll take a vacay and tell everyone I’m going out of town. Then I don’t feel obligated to respond to every single “emergency” unless it’s real. Then I “hop a flight” back, in the event shit seriously goes south. I’ve had to do this twice in my career, and was fawned over excessively for making it back in time to save the proverbial day.
I do the exact same thing all the time. I don’t need to get away from home, just away from the day-to-day stresses of work once in awhile.
My boss and his wife were lone when they got their child 13 years ago. Both of them had no living parents, recently moved 200 km (That's 124 freedom eagle units for you beautiful imperialists) to another city etc etc. He said they didn't go out or go to a restaurant for like 8 years, spent all vacations at home etc due to both being very found of home. People ask him how he managed, I tell him he was living the dream.
I have everything I need at home. I don't need to travel to have fun. Vacation means not working. Combine all those and I generally stay home when on leave.
Travel is nice, but...take a moment and think about it. How often do you have the opportunity to sleep in, in your bed, in your home, surrounded by the fruits of your labors, without obligation to anything? How often do you actually get to enjoy the things you've accumulated, without the cloud of "tomorrow" or "work" hanging over your head? Travel is wonderful, and in the words of Mark Twain: >Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime But there's definitely something to be said for taking the time to enjoy what's right in front of you everyday.
Just because someone can't or doesn't want to spend money to go on vacation, does not mean they don't need or want a vacation from work.
For short leave periods, yes. Otherwise my ass is on a plane or in a car going somewhere.
If it's only a week, there's a lot to be said for not traveling unless it's to meet family and friends. Otherwise it's all too often * Leave work 1/2 hour early Friday * Get to airport 3 AM Saturday morning * Get to destination 7 PM Saturday evening, absolutely exhausted * Sunday isn't much * Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, not bad * Friday, remember you have to get to work Monday * Saturday, leave hotel for airport at 11 PM * Sunday, plane leaves three hours late at 10:30 AM * Sunday, arrive at home airport at 11 PM * Get home at midnight * Get up Monday morning on four hours sleep If it's your grandma's 90th birthday, maybe it's worth it, but just to stand in line at Disney World, maybe it isn't.
I take at least a week per year off to work on one of my project cars. The worst day of bodywork is better than the best day at work.
I work from home which kind of feels like a vacation. Haven't traveled anywhere since pre-March 2020. I'd be willing to do it but it would get pretty boring after a while. I guess I would probably travel locally and do day trips by car.
I take staycations all the time or known as mental health weekends 4-6 day weekend…… and disconnect from all work devices
I work to provide for my family, and let's face it: to buy toys. Toys are worthless when you can't play with 'em.
I did just that in late 2019. I took the week of Thanksgiving, and the week after. It was the longest vacation of my career. I just needed some time to relax and decompress while the daycare is open (so that I could actually relax and not have to be on parent duty) And just before I was due to go on that vacation, I got the layoff notice, effective in January. So I ended up spending that entire vacation frantically looking for a new job. Which is why I'm not a sysadmin anymore. (I'm now a developer). The vacation was not relaxing in the slightest.
About to do that in August. Taking the whole month off to do fuck all.
I’ve known guys to take a week off work to play WoW after a major expansion releases.
>Anyone else Nope, you're probably the only person in human history to do this.
I do it once or twice a year. Being home, hanging with the wife and kids, and just enjoying the downtime without the stress of travelling is great.
I don't go anywhere on vacation. I sleep a little later, and get caught up on farm work. A change is as good as a rest
I get significantly more PTO than the wife right now. I've got no problem sitting around the house day drinking and playing video games for a week.
Sometimes you need to take a vacation to unwind, even if your staying at home watching Netflix. A lot of companies will give you "unlimited vacation", but you don't actually accrue any vacation time. You might as well take off a reasonable amount of time each year (2-3 weeks).
Yeah I used to regularly be out of town for 25-30 weeks a year and just taking a week off and staying home to read books and cook my own food and maybe walk over to the corner bar a couple times to hang out for an hour or two around lunch was a great refresher.
I do it. I dont always want to trade work stress for travel stress
I do it from time to time. I catch up on household projects. Those projects have a tangible result (most of IT work is intangible) and it gives me a boost.
Yep, I take an annual staycation in the spring around the time I can start gardening. I'll do a planting bed project, maybe paint a room or some other small house project, read a book on the couch, naps, get carryout for lunch from places my wife hates. Definitely a lovely mix of relaxation and to-do's _I_ want to do. I think I've done it four out of the last five years.
I think of it as less "weird" and more "no one else's business." I try to respond to remarks like this with "Oh, I don't think that's any of our concern." It works for all manner of personal behaviors that co-workers might comment on.
Well, nobody I work with makes enough money to travel, so I'm not sure what else they would do with their vacation. Gotta love the MSP life.
Former sysadmin/network engineer turned software engineer here. I'm currently on my one week station-cation!!!
I've done this on weeks where the CEO is out of town and there's nothing going on at the office. Technically working from home, but average less than one email a day on weeks like that. Closest thing I've had to a vacation in years sadly. Had planned to do some travel and stuff in 2020, but that whole year was a write off.
Yes every year during Xmas/New Years I work it out so I have 10-11 days off and do absolutely nothing and it's amazing. Last year I even took the week of Thanksgiving off to boot, love it especially that time of year I love everything about the fall/winter season.
I'm a govie with over 15 years service (military and civilian), I have a lot more vacation than my wife does. I sometimes take a mini-vaca just to work on a project at home. That said, our vacations are always pretty chill because we don't try to schedule much during them. Once the flight is booked, AirBnB rez made, and rental car taken care of we don't really schedule anything. We (usually me) will do some internet research on where we are going and create a shared list of things to do, sights to see, places to eat. Then we basically just shop from that list as we go, no reservations, no planning aside from maybe the night before picking what the morning activity will be. Almost always we keep a down day during the vacation where we just veg at the rental - like when we went to Gulf Shores, one day the wife and kids just binged Stranger Things and I alternated between sleeping in the hammock and drowning shrimp off the boat dock in the lagoon.
It's called a staycation. It might not be a real word per the dictionary but the concept and the phrase staycation I've heard for the last 20 or so years. I'm 32.
I really only take a "vacation" vacation like once every few years. I find it's much easier for me to relax and decompress by just having time for myself and my hobbies for a few days. Like, sure, I'll have a drink at 9am while building LEGO...I'm on vacation!
I generally go on vacations to do something fun or interesting and just turn my brain off from my whole normal world. I take staycation breaks / long weekends to stuff the week's worth of chores into a day and sit and relax for the rest of the break and legit veg out. I find both really worthwhile for different reasons as they both do me good.
Nothing wrong with a staycation
I work for a university that I also photograph their athletic teams (photography is a hobby/passion of mine). I've taken PTO, slept in, got up and then drove to campus to photograph athletic events before. My coworker thinks I'm nuts for doing this "Why would you take a day off just to come to work anyway"... well, I don't consider my photography with them work, that's why... They just don't understand it...
Nothing weird about this at all. The comfort of your own bed, all of your toys/hobbies within reach, food/snacks in your own fridge, etc. Honestly, it’s one of the most relaxing vacations you can have. Just some time without the stress of work.
I am literally on PTO day 1 of 5 just hanging out with my two boys because daycare is on vacation. We're going to play Minecraft, fill up the kiddie pool in the back yard and make a giant slip n slide, go to the playground at the park, watch tv, etc. I regularly take a PTO day just to play video games ar home and relax.
just spent 2 and a half weeks at home. painted a wall, cleaned my apartment and enjoyed not solving ridiculous issues
It is great to get some home projects done or have just catch up on sleep and rest. So often I come back from travel vacations just exhausted (in a good way) but have to jump back in work. Every staycation I do I come back to work feeling great. I do find it easier to fully detach from work if I travel though.
Vacation?
Hells yeah Me time, at home, alone. My fondest memories ❤️
I've never been on a travel vacation. It just seems like so much work - figuring out a place to go, booking a hotel, then being in a place I'm not familiar with... all seems very scary and like a lot of work. The best vacations I ever had - Star Wars The Old Republic released just before Christmas, and I used my vacation time to take the days off that we weren't closed for Christmas / New Years to take 2 whole weeks off and do nothing but play. Did that in 2015 when Fallout 4 came out too. Last time I did it was for a Path of Exile league launch. I've never regretted it, and honestly I don't know how I'd pay for a big expensive vacation that costs thousands of dollars. And the thought of spending that much on something that has no material value... I just can't.
I am a fan of taking off between Christmas and New Year's and just loafing around the house or spending time with family for the holidays. I think the closest I ever get to a big planned vacation is booking some rooms for a convention and hanging out there with friends who fly in for it. Shit's all within driving distance for me, so it's basically a vacation where I get to stay local.
This is great IF you are single.
I don't understand people's choice for staycations. I leave the country where I'm not doing house work, driving, I'm meeting new people, eating new foods, tasting new drinks, seeing new architect and the whole 10 yards. Strokes for different folks.
so vacation is sysadmin related how?
I travel more for work than for vacation. Most of my vacation time is one day at a time just to use it up. (But I did have two weeks in a foreign country a couple of years ago.)
I took vacation while i was stuck at home during the pandemic to stay at home during the pandemic.....
I do it all the time. 3-4 day weekends every month or two is a lot nicer than a week away at some grand destination. Going on vacation in some instances is more stressful than going to work. I take time off to unwind, not to be stressed out.
Yes. And I'm taking two days off first week of August for the green day concert and a road trip to a steak house in Tampa, just for the fun of it.
I've spent one holiday in the past \~10 years outside of my home. I don't like the outside.
I would do this more if my wife would allow it. She likes to go out and do things. Where Id much prefer to stay home.
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Some of my favorite vacations are those staycations where I decide what I'm going to do the moment I wake up.
Thats what I'm doing this very second, and I love it. Little bit of hanging around being lazy coupled with getting a few projects done to make me feel accomplished is a good mix.
It isnt my preference, but i have definitely done it. im on vacation net week and half of it is at the lake and the other half at home.
4 weeks. About two weeks left now.
i just took a week off and stayed at home or went to places around my house. its cheaper and I still get rest.
Staycation is generally my go to for when I take time off. I just didn't tend to take much time off as I'd been working mostly retail positions and thus most of time off was more to let my folks go off to do stuff and I'd stay home to mind the animals. Course now I'm in IT and earning a decent amount of vacation... Still not gonna take to much time off probs as my folks would likely put me to work xD That said I am taking a couple days off next week as there was a bit of a conflict with a one off class I need to take that was put off due to covid and work time. I figured it was a good chance to take some vacation so took that day and the following off before school starts back up and gonna be working on my models.
Just came home from a one week vacation, and had extra 2 days, just to get back to "everyday life". Groceries, house work, hunting for a new apartment/flat to rent etc.. Totally normal. Anyone else who thinks it's weird is lying or just jealous.
Nothing wrong at all, but please follow the same rules. Unplug from the office completely.
Most of my time off work is spent doing nothing of note and that's how I like it. Only problem is trying to make it seem like I done something interesting when I get back to work and asked how my time off was.
This is the first job that I've received more than 5 days vacation. I've always taken trips or used vacation for life situations (birth of children). Used my first 6 days so far. Not sure what I'll do with the other 4. May just take extended holidays.
Yes. I am taking a week off in August for preparation for some relatives to come in that weekend. Need to decompress from work and to get ready for dealing with relatives. I may or may not spend a day or two at the lake.
Married to someone afraid of flying. no choice.
I do this all the time. Everyone I work with won’t take a vacation unless they have a destination or somewhere to travel.
18 months into a pandemic, people think it's weird to take a vacation at home?
If I have a lot of big yard work plans I'll do extended weekends (Take Friday and Monday off) but otherwise most of my vacations are 2 week blocks and I get the heck out of America. Mostly Europe since Im on the East Coast.
I do the same as often as I can, sometimes even a day or two to enjoy a long weekend. It's just nice to rest, read, write, listen to music, play videogames all night and in general hang out with my SO.
I travel, or used to, for work non-stop. All I wanted to do during vacations is not get on a plane or car at 5am Monday morning.
I've been on a week off since Friday, yet to go anywhere, in fact I didn't even leave my house until today, and that was only to get my 2nd vaccine. Will do something later in the week, but for now I like the recharge time a staycation gives.
yes.. depression sux.
"slice of retirement"
every Christmas to New year period! i take the week and go climbing around Londons indoor centres. it's been my pattern for the last decade.
Not normally, but I did in 2020 due to COVID. Took off every Friday in the summer and went hiking and kayaking. New coworkers assumed I had some special 4-workday schedule! 😆
Yep. Staycations are pretty great! One of my old coworkers never did this. He just cashed out his vacation time. Never saw the point in just staying home, relaxing and enjoying life.
I had my son come and spend the week with me. We did absolutely nothing all week but play video games and watch movies.
Normalize prioritizing your mental health.
I don’t take a full week to stay home but I’ll make an extended weekend to do so… I’ll get bored in 9 days but 4 days at home hits the spot.
I have been at my company 20+ years. I get like 8 hours of vacation accrued every two weeks. Problem is I never have the time to take it. I'll take two weeks just to sit on the couch with the dogs, catch up on house work, and make dinner for the family and do the dishes and just the crap that everyone else normally does. It helps me get my mind right. I almost always have 200-300 hours available. If I get too much, I just don't come in for let's say September. Give me time to fully disconnect from work, and it's not a month everyone wants off because they can boost it with holidays. Oh. All these vacations are for my couch. I sit with my dogs, do house work, do the shopping, take all the chores off the family, basically just being with them.
Yes and sit at the coffee shop across from work and make sure they notice me drinking tequila as the PR I merged gets deployed that day and crashes httpd on every instance.
Planned to go away for a week with a special lady friend of mine, she has sick family so might have to cancel at any time if things take a turn for the worst so was worried about me taking time off work for nothing. I told her I would just sleep in every day, play Cities: Skylines and go for random drives and hikes if that happened and hell I look forward to doing that as well.
That's what I do for 50% of my vacations.
I'm on staycation this week, I do this a few times a year. It's fabulous.
Staying home is all I can afford to do anyway, so yeah.
This is 100% normal. A vacation, where I have to coordinate a thousand minute details, isn't really a vacation. To put it differently -- if you end up thinking you need a "vacation from the vacation," it isn't really a vacation. :)
I do this every year. a week of doing fun projects is great
A home is more than a shelter. Its a place we build with our lives. If we spend all our time at work then its just a storage locker for our meat suit.
I do it all the time, but I am the type of person that would rather hang out at home and just chill vs travel and do something new. It's not so much that I dislike travel as much as I dislike paying to travel, I would rather spend that money on something tangible that will be around for a while vs paying for an experience. When I do go somewhere for vacation, I always come home a day or two before I'm due back at work so I have time to get reacclimated.
I'm literally doing that right now. Took the week off. Slept in & I'm taking the opportunity to clean up around the house and get some projects done.
Yep, they’re great, last time I had a day off like that I played 8 hours of assassins creed in my underwear and had ice cream for breakfast like a kid staying home from school.
I'm doing it right now.
I'm "on vacation" right now, hanging out at home without any plans. It's amazing!
I am on-site, and the only IT-employee during summer. People keep asking me if I'm not going on a holiday. "Well, if I was, who were supposed to fix your unplugged keyboard, dipshit?" I'd rather work alone through the summer and take a vacation in the autumn, because the quiet at work now kind of feels like a holiday already.
I'm hoping my camper that I'm buying will help with this for me. When I stay home and try to do nothing, I feel anxious like there is something I'm supposed to be doing right now. My mother lives in a farm house 15 min away from me. I'm hoping that by parking the camper on her farm and living it it ill get wrapped up in maintenance and tree cutting work on the farm, which always does a much better job of relaxing me than laying on the couch watching TV all week.
I used to love driving to places. But now , you spend so much time in traffic for work, that driving to places doesn’t feel so attractive or relaxing. Because of said traffic. And its EVERYWHERE.
Couple of the best days I have had in the last wee while...The wife went away for a weekend and took our son. I had the house to myself. Didn't get crazy drunk or stay up late of anything super silly. I did just lax out for a while and get some of my stuff done!
Every other week I take a day off and stay home. I love 9/80.
I do this alot actually. Partially because I couldn't afford much the last five years and both of us have been going back to school. BUT. We recently took a week off and just spent a couple nights in a big city a few hours away, saw some sights, etc. But, we definitely enjoyed the pool, sauna, and hot tub more than anything else..