Just Let Me Enjoy My Staycation In Peace

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My palms are sweaty and my throat is suddenly scratchy. I pray that my face doesn’t give away my internal panic as I flip mentally through all the possible lies I can use to respond to the innocuous question: “So where are you going?”

It’s one of those mindless niceties that coworkers will throw out during break room conversations, like “crazy weather,” or “God [insert home team here] really blew out their opponent last night,” or the old reliable “how’s it going?” At the instant that you mention you’ll be out of the office, whether it be leaving a few hours early on a Friday or gone for a whole month, this question is the crutch your coworkers will instantly lean on. It’s an opportunity to spare us from uncomfortable silence and feign interest in people you forget exist at 5:01 each week day.

This time, the query was proffered by a coworker as we stood idly by the coffee machine. Labor Day weekend, the next major holiday that brings with it a precious three-day weekend, is fast approaching. Discussions of plans for that weekend abound, and people are already prefacing their work emails with statements like “I’ll be out the Friday before Labor Day weekend, so make sure I have time to review this before then.” So when I casually mention to my coworker that I am going to be out the Tuesday following Labor Day, her question is almost instinctual. My problem is that I have no answer.

Because the truth is that I’m not going anywhere Labor Day weekend. At least I currently do not have plans to travel anywhere. I may go to one last barbeque with my friends or family. Maybe catch some rays at the pool one last time. Go out for some other gathering to celebrate the unofficial end of summer. But in all likelihood I will spend the bulk of my four day weekend at home, doing absolutely nothing. At present, I have only one compelling reason to justify me not being at work on September 6: it’s the release day of Destiny 2. But if I tell her that I want to take this extra day off to play a video game on day one of release, I know what reaction I’ll get.

And so I lie. I tell my coworker that I’ll be off on a camping trip with some of my buddies, not getting back until Tuesday morning. It’s baloney, but she coos and squeals about how much fun we will have, asking a thousand questions about my friends and where we are going. Like a compulsive liar, the fibs flow from me like a river until the coffee is done and we part ways. I make a mental note to remember what I said so my story across the office will be consistent (the key to doing this properly is to lean heavily on actual facts, in this case, a real trip I took last year). No one will ever know that in reality, I will spend that entire vacation day in my house, wearing basketball shorts and an Under Armor shirt, exploring the galaxy and leveling up my Guardian.

Once upon a time, I made the error in judgment of revealing my actual intentions to stay home on the day Fallout 4 was being released. The two coworkers who were present both looked at me like I had told them that I needed to take the day in order to celebrate the god Ra’s birthday by sacrificing a ferret at exactly 3:33 p.m. They didn’t actually verbalize their condemnation, but the “oh”s they gave in response to my statement, and the subsequent requests to get some work done from home on my vacation days told the whole story. If you tell people that you just want to stay home, and you’re not traveling or going to some day-long event, they’ll trivialize it. Think it’s a waste of time and a vacation day. Assume that, since you’re only a few miles away with access to the Internet and not “busy” you’ll be able to respond to actual work requests.

Given my stance of traveling and vacations, I really only have the need to take vacation days for weddings and the occasional weekend trip. As a result, I found myself sitting on an entire month’s worth of unused vacation days earlier in the year. I have to burn these days, even though I really don’t need to, so I often use them for an extra-long weekend every now and again. Yet always, I am asked to justify these absences. So I just lie.

Since I entered the workforce, I’ve probably invented more weddings than I’ve actually attended. Almost certainly I’ve spent fewer days actually traveling than I claimed to be traveling. A month ago I had to take a Friday off to “go on a golf trip to South Carolina.” I was actually seeing a matinee of Baby Driver on opening day (best movie of 2017 in my opinion). That time I was “at my childhood friend’s wedding in California”? I was actually catching a Nationals day game. “Going to visit family in New York”? Nope, just spending the whole day grinding solo queue on League of Legends (dammit I will get back to gold this season). I’ve taken days off to read, relax by the pool, sleep in, day drink, or even just get errands done. But try telling your work wife that you’re taking the day off to go to the dentist, get your car’s safety inspection done, and then chill out at home. See if they leave you that extra day of peace and quiet you so desperately need.

Unfortunately, the attitude that vacation days need to be spent on actual vacations seems to be a part of the American and Millennial culture to glamorize work martyrs and ignore mental health. The explanation that “I just needed a day off to recover” or “I’m feeling stressed out and want a long weekend” just never seems sufficient. Even the if you don’t plan to be lazy all day long and actually plan some recreational activity, whether it be the release of a new movie, in the eyes of some it won’t justify the need for an entire day off. It’s a foreign concept, especially for older or more traditionalist coworkers, to use vacation days for pure introversion and relaxation.

And that’s a real shame because, if you’re like me and find traveling to be more stressful than recreational, there’s not a lot of events that justify a vacation. Hell, even some weddings or weekend trips are local enough that you’ll be back Sunday night. For a lot of people who can’t, or don’t want to, take week-long vacations, there aren’t a whole lot of ways to spend all those banked vacation days.

So I’d really like it if people could just accept that, for some people, staying in their house all day marathoning the Defenders is a better way to relax and recharge than going on a beach excursion. Don’t get annoyed when I don’t answer a non-urgent work e-mail just because you know I’m still in bed. Don’t expect that I can review some briefs, or even come into the office to meet a client (yes I’ve had this asked) when I asked for this day off a month ago. You wouldn’t ask it if I really was on that trip for my buddy’s bachelor party, and it’s unfair to ask it because you don’t think I’m actually on vacation. A vacation for you might not be a vacation for me, so just let me relax at home with my greasy sandwich and all the Star Wars movies on DVD. I promise I need it..

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Josh T.

Don't call me a liar, but you don't have to call me a truther.

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