Is it a vacation if you don't vacate?

[Caroline]

That's the title of this article in today's San Francisco Comical er, Chronicle.*

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...&sn=003&sc=744

General thrust of the article is that many people are not taking vacation and that "...73.9 percent of employees admit to contacting the office or colleagues while on vacation.* Close to half say they do some work when they're away."

This follows on the heels of a conversation I just had with my boss.* After 25 years with Megacorp he has earned untold weeks of vacation (he doesn't remember how many weeks per year, total), and he's just NOW taken a week off after two YEARS without a week-long-or-better vacation.

Of the many weeks he does have, this week will be more or less all he takes this year.* What's more, Megacorp doesn't accrue vacation from year to year.* You use it or you lose it.

I don't get it.* But then, I'm from the slow class.

Does anyone out there love their job (or loathe their family) so much they'd rather work than go on vaction?* Or are things so scary out there that folks feel the need to work for free for several weeks out of the year (which is what giving up vacation is), rather than take time to "sharpen the saw?"