I have recently received several ads on LinkedIn regarding workation. I am not sure if I think it sounds stupid or not.
I get the appeal of going south (I am from Denmark, we just had the most rainy summer ever recorded) and enjoy the weather, but at the same time it sounds like the perfect way to not enjoy your time abroad.
I work in a position where I could easily ask to work remote for a week or two, thus the targeting ad is correct that I am in the segment.
Any thoughts, experience or opinion on this?
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The idea of “work vacations” only exists because capitalism demands the entirety of our lives. I’m not working on my vacation, period.
I agree but it’s supposed to be the other way around: Have a bit of vacation while you work. You still get your actual PTO in addition to that which you can use on an actual vacation.
See it never works out that way. My experience has been that I’m stuck working more than I am vacationing, and when I’m not working, I’m thinking about work the whole time. It also means I’m not doing the same level of focused work as I can at home. I have hardcore ADHD and introducing more distractions is something I have to personally steer away from. So I’m either in (fully on a vacation) or I’m out (fully working in my own space). There’s no in between.
I also see it as having vacatio while you work, plus you have plain old vacation without working.
I think that’s a skewed way of looking at it. I can see the appeal if your family is able to take advantage. Like if your kids are off and your spouse doesn’t work (or maybe can also work remotely). That way you can enjoy some nicer weather and a different location and are able to stay longer. It’s definitely not for me because like you said I’d rather just have a vacation, but I think blaming it on capitalism is a bit of an odd way of looking at what’s essentially someone’s lifestyle choice.
The problem is that it gets presented as a way to take time off from your job with “unlimited” vacation time while still working, which of crap.
The idea only works as a more extreme form of remote work. So, remote work where some of the time is at Grandma’s.
I worked remotely from Caye Caulker Belize for severalmonths and I was literally the dude in this photo, only much more stoned.
The question is not “is it better than a normal vacation?” where of course the answer is “no.” Rather, the question is “is it better than your regular work routine?” The answer to that depends on a lot of factors: your specific job, personality, personal finances, family obligations, etc. I think there are lots of circumstances where it could make sense for some people.
IDK, seems stupid to me. The whole point of going to a vacation is to get away from work… well, at least for me. Some workaholics out there might disagree, but that’s not me 🤷.
Idk, presumably you have time before/after work everyday plus a weekend in this other place without travel. I feel like I could enjoy something like this.
What if you put on top? Let’s say you get your vacation + 4 week of workation? Very useful for me to visit the family tbh
If you’re working, you aren’t on vacation
The only way I’d do that is if my employer paid for travel, food, and lodging. And even then, I’d do as much as I could before leaving and then just phone it in during the week as much as possible.
I did it for about a month and and loved it. We got an Airbnb in Arizona. We woke up early, clocked out early, and went hiking nearly every day. The weekends we did a trip to the Grand Canyon and Sedona, both great experiences. If you can make it work, then try it out. I know tons of people that maintain jobs while travelling almost full time.
I’m on vacation with my extended family and I brought my laptop. I didn’t expect to get a lot of work done, but so far I’ve only been able to keep up with emails. There’s always something to do and someone who wants my attention. Family definitely comes first, and I’m enjoying the vacation, but I’m getting very little work done.
How did you manage that? Who did you travel with? How did you separate work time from fun time?
Our situation was a bit different since it was just me and my wife. We both had our 8 hour work schedules so we kept to our jobs for most of the day. I also recall taking a day off to make a three day weekend here and there.
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We do it regularly - but from a much different angle than the US is sometimes promoting it.
We take 2-3 weeks off work as everyone does in my country. The problem is: Schools off much longer and neither the wife nor I can get more than 3 weeks off in a row (there are other school holidays to cover as well…). So we usually add another week or one and a half and work with reduced hours (accrued overtime, neither of us works for more than 5h per day) and usually mixed (half the time I take off work, half the time she is off work) time off periods. That works wonders as it is still much more relaxing than being back in the daily grind at home and the location away from home forces you to not do something about all the leftover chores waiting for you at home and often it’s easier to get the kids entertained at a vacation location. That helps a lot.
Actually my friends company explicitly promotes this type of arrangements as they found their staff satisfaction to be much higher this way.
If you just go somewhere else to work from there without time out…well… that’s a fucking business trip. Not a vacation.
It’s great. But you have to approach it differently than a vacation. You go to a different location, find a nice place to work, and work. On your downtime you can go out and explore. But don’t push it. You need to focus on mostly working. And maybe on the weekends exploring. If you do that you’ll have a great time.
But I think most people try to cram in a vacation in addition to working everyday. And they hate it. Because they’re overloaded. Just think of it as working from a new place for a while. And it’s got some interesting things to do. It’s not a vacation opportunity you need to exploit to its fullest.
This goes double e so if you’re traveling to be opposite side of the world and have time zone issues. Your work has to be your priority. So maintain that time zone. And don’t try to stay up at weird times. It’s going to impact your enjoyment of the workday.
Just pretend your office sent you to a new location to work for a month like an office in a different city. You’d obviously go to work everyday. And then you do some interesting things when you weren’t working. Same concept.
Have an international SIM card before you go. Like Google Fi. Or anything from Arlo.
Map out coworking spaces or coffee shops in the area where you’re going to stay. Have at least two locations you could work from in case internet has issues.
Don’t assume the hotel internet will be up to standard. It might be that’d be great. But don’t depend on it. That internet can be very stressful for remote working
This is propaganda… Plain and simple.
Yep. This is on par with the onslaught of bullshit articles telling us going back to office is better for us, the drive is a good disconnect, etc. It’s nothing but capitalist drivel paid for by capitalists.
If you’re working permanent remote, just do what I did and move to where you like to vacation.
I have 20 days a year to work anywhere from EU. I mostly use it to go back to my home country and meet friends & family, without having to use up vacation days.
You say you can easily work remotely, but that is not the same thing as working from another country. Tax implications, cross border data transfer, work residency rules - absolutely speak to your HR before assuming that if you’re remote it doesn’t matter where you are
This is an area where forgiveness is much better then permission. Just do it, and if there are detectable issues, work it out after the fact.
If you EVER go to HR with a “interesting” problem, the answer is NO, and not only is it NO, but now you know you can’t do it, and can’t try it anyway.
As someone who is right now working from abroad by necessity - this idea is full of shit.
Yes, you won’t get a chance to properly enjoy your time away, you will always have time constrains (remember - you still need to work, and it’s still on top of your priority list), you will only get to enjoy the country like 2h a day (or whatever you had before as “me” time - that time didn’t change much) .
Assuming you are not going out far from your usual timezone - you will basically only enjoy it in the evenings, and if you are adventurous enough to move very far away from your original timezone - gl, because now you will have all the timezone mess upon you and possibly are working in the unusual hours.
In short: your work will suffer, you will suffer, you won’t get to enjoy your vacation and the country and on top of that - this will cost you more money than you usually pay! What a steal (literally).
And what happened to someone I know is: When they came back, everyone acted like as if they had a full vacation and not just worked abroad. Everyone expected them to have magically recovered from work and they were asked to not take “another vacation” because “they already had one”. On top their work from abroad was looked at way more critical, because some people assumed you can’t do your work well when the beach is waiting for you.
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How very dystopian
