THE VACATION PARADOX
By: Rusty Tolley
The Vacation Paradox refers to the irony that, for a lawyer, taking a vacation is the most stressful job challenge you will ever face. Planning and fantasizing about a relaxing get-away can be a pleasant and even healthy exercise. Actually leaving the office for more than the eight consecutive hours that some clients and senior partners graciously allot you for sleep is another matter.
First, no matter how far you plan in advance, no matter how many times you mention your plans to your clients, and no matter how many memos you write to your superiors setting forth the dates you will be out of the office, studies show there is a 65 percent chance that within three days of your planned departure you will get “The Call”. The Call is always from your firm’s chairman or your client’s general counsel, and it goes something like this: “Something BIG has come up—We need you in Chicago on Wednesday; it’s BIG. Don’t know how long, just know it’s BIG—great career opportunity for you–BIG. I’d like to handle it myself, but I’ll be on vacation.”
Even if you avoid The Call and the concomitant forfeiture of your deposit (an expense that law-firm controllers do not view as reimbursable), you cannot eliminate the stress of anticipating The Call. While burdened with this stress, you enter the PVM (Pre-Vacation Mania) Phase of the Vacation Paradox. During the PVM Phase, you go about the pointless and exhausting exercise of trying to do enough work before vacation to avoid working on vacation. You know from past experience it cannot be done, and yet you try —maybe one more all-nighter before flight time will do the trick. You make insane demands on your secretary and your subordinates. (Research confirms that most legal secretary resignations occur during their bosses’ PVM Phase.) And like last year, and the year before, you fail. If you are not hospitalized for exhaustion, or injuries inflicted by a secretary, you will begin your vacation debilitated by fatigue and the long “to do” list in your briefcase.
Even if you could eliminate the “to do” list, you still could not eliminate the necessity of working on vacation. There are voice-mails to check, filing deadlines (which never take vacation days into account) to meet, client emergencies to address, and conference calls that absolutely require your participation. Working on vacation is, of course, inherently more stressful than working in the office. For one thing, facilities are inadequate. I have never stayed at a hotel, no matter how luxurious, that had a working fax machine. I have never owned a cell phone that allowed me to complete an important call on vacation without losing service. Moreover, the inadequate service that was provided was always routed through towers in Mexico and accompanied by $350 roaming fees. (You guessed it—not reimbursable.)
Maintaining an appropriate level of concentration while working on vacation is also difficult. Imagine wrestling with the intricacies of Justice Douglas’ “new equity infusion exception” to the Bankruptcy Code’s “absolute priority rule” while everyone around you is sipping fruity cocktails topped with tiny umbrellas and discussing the Brave’s playoff chances.
Vacation anxiety mounts as the family selfishly insists that you actually participate in vacation activities. Unfortunately, about the time you have worked enough on your vacation to create some time to be with the family, it is time to start dreading the return to the office. You know the papers in the “In Box” have reached a height and mass constituting an OSHA work hazard for your secretary or anyone else entering the office. Your mind is just not on vacation anymore; how could it be with the workload you face on your return? What made your family think you could take a vacation anyway? How can they be so self-centered? You begin to think about, and sometimes actually implement, an early return so you can get a jump on the work that has piled up. This also allows an early start on the post-traumatic vacation stress syndrome that will take six to eight weeks to run its course after your return.
My friend, Jim Miller, offers the solution to the Vacation Paradox. He advises planning and fantasizing about a wonderful vacation with your family. This promotes healthy family interaction and is free from the stress of actually going on vacation.
BUT DON’T GO!
Send the family on vacation, but cancel your participation at the last minute. Knowing you are not actually going on a vacation is a tremendous stress relief. Jim says it is difficult to imagine the wave of peace that came over him the first time he voluntarily cancelled his vacation! He no longer dreaded The Call, he avoided the exhausting PVM, he by-passed the anxiety of working on vacation, his in box did not pile up, his family had a great time, he did not face the post-traumatic vacation stress syndrome, and he regained control of the remote.
Rusty Tolley