Take Your Vacation

(from April 12, 1999)

“No one ever complained on their death bed that they wish they'd spent more time in the office.” As truisms go, this is one of the truest. As a boy, I knew many men (and now as an adult, I even know some women) who don't take their vacation, who never take it. In some companies, you get cash for that. In most, including the one I work(ed) for, when you have accumulated the maximum number of vacation days, you stop accumulating until you take some. You can't cash them out.

I have always striven to be the opposite. Not a person who says, "I've never taken a vacation day," but rather, a person who says, "I've never let a vacation day expire." So far, in the 25 years since I graduated from college, that's a true statement. In fact, I left UPI still owing some days to Peter Brown (Hi Peter!), and while I admittedly had vacation days left when I departed Bank of America, it was only because I'd just been there a year. Honestly, if I'd stayed longer, I would have taken more vacation. Actually, I took about a month's vacation just before I left, but I spent it sitting in my office, staring into space, moping (that's another story...).

My feeling is that people who don't take vacation, whether they are single, married, or family people, are cheating both themselves and their company. Yes, it is true that you lose all the relaxation benefits of vacation about 20 seconds after you step back into the office, but 'tis better to have vacated and lost than never to have vacated at all.

Take your vacation. Do it for your company, your family... and yourself.

[Ed. Note: My father rarely took vacations. You’ve heard of cafeteria Catholics? I am a cafeteria son. I emulate the great attributes of my dad: his honesty, sobriety, and fidelity. I do NOT emulate things like working long hours and weekends, seldom hugging my kids, rarely taking vacations.]