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In today’s world of multiple electronic connections, the line between work and leisure can become blurred. I choose to embrace that blurring, but I can understand those folks who see it as a trap.
I’m sitting in the stately dining room of a beautiful bed and breakfast on the outskirts of Asheville, North Carolina. I took the photo above from the front porch. I drove up here yesterday with my younger daughter and we met her friend’s family for dinner. This morning, I dropped her off at a summer camp where she will spend two weeks. Later this evening, my wife will fly into the area and we will spend the night at this same wonderful location. Then we will drive down for a couple of nights on an island off the coast of North Florida.
I marvel at how the concept of "vacation" has changed in the years since I was young. Today, even while on the road, we are so connected to the rest of the world–at least if we choose to do so. Our cars receive guidance from a device connected to satellite that pinpoints our location on a map and provides directions to where we wish to go. We also can get our music from another satellite and our mobile phones can keep us in instant touch with anyone. My daughter sent and received hundreds of text messages during the long drive yesterday, including a number of them exchanged with my wife, who was in California at the time.
Today though, as I dropped my daughter off at camp, she turned her phone off and dropped it in the glove box of the car. She will disconnect for two weeks. We will probably get a letter or two from her, but that will be the full extent of contact. In a sense, she is vacationing back in the era in which I grew up. Her interactions will all be face to face, with the exception of the letters she writes home. She will have to save up memories for a couple of days and filter them down to just the few she wishes to commit to paper, rather than sending them off in a text message that is to be replaced a minute or two later with the next thought.
I’ll be vacationing somewhere between those two worlds. I’ve already gotten the text message that my wife has boarded her flight from California and I will keep my phone turned on, waiting for word when she boards for Asheville. I’ll probably take a drive a bit later along the Blue Ridge Parkway to take in some of my favorite scenery in quite remote places, but I will still know when that flight takes off and I need to head for the airport.
On Monday, I may be providing some Firedoglake editorial coverage from our car as my wife drives us back to Florida. Much of the FDL crew has been in Las Vegas at Netroots Nation 2010, and travel schedules may be such that I need to help then, outside my normal evening shift. There’s no way that will "feel" like work. I’ll be traveling with my wife, moving from one wonderful location to another. We’ll find time to walk the beach once we arrive, and I will then enjoy my usual evening shift.
In this era of digital communication, "vacations" can be anything. Especially if your job can be done online, it is possible to fulfill many, if not all, of your work requirements while also technically being on vacation.
Consider this thread to be an opportunity to pull up the chair you see in the photo and share your thoughts on how the numerous electronic "connections" that are available shape our work and leisure times and how those times overlap or not. I might be around, or I might be out taking in more of the scenery, because that’s the beauty of vacations: I have no plans until I pick my wife up at the airport.
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I’ve been on a forced “vacation” for so long that if it weren’t for digital communications, I would be much more isolated than I currently am. Hurray for communication!
Erm…
where is the beef? Does this “story” have a point?
Do you?
Real communication is always welcome, the only kind that irritates me is getting false info from trolling sorts. (as I have now at my the seminal post on jobs).
Every employer abuses the new communications technologies, I think. And every employee allows it to happen. We need to be more vigilant, to preserve time for ourselves, our families, and our loved ones in the onslaught of constant availability.
My dad had an almost critically important job throughout his career — I mean, national security, network availability kind of important, missiles getting through the failsafe web kind of job — and I can count on one hand the number of times he got a call at home from his workplace. The idea of being connected via multiple technologies to a supervisor and a workplace would baffle him, especially for those of us who hold jobs with no earth-mission criticality.
Your daughter is on the best vacation of all, Jim. We need to make the effort to have that kind of vacation — and evenings and weekends, too! — for ourselves more often.
Thanks for this thought-provoking post….
Heh. I refuse to use a cell phone. We have one in the house for emergencies, and take it in the car in case of a break-down. Nobody has the number. The idea of being at everyone’s beck and call 24/7 gives me a case of the screaming heebie-jeebies. Y’all can play with your Crackberries and twitter-twatter. Me? I’ll enjoy my privacy.
I used to say the same thing–then I got a cell phone. Remember, you are at everyone’s beck and call only if you give out the number widely and keep it turned on.
My kids have my cell number and I have theirs. I am calmer as a rtesult, not more stressed. They could reach me if they needed to, so they must not need to.
My boss has my cell number too. But I can see who she is before answering too.
You are just a loud shout from my home. It is beautiful country, these mountains. Remember their beauty when the energy and hospitality industries want to cut off the mountain tops and build interstates through them.
I think the thing about the connectivity is to know when to turn it off. A relative of mine emailed us daily his GPS logs on a trip west. On the other hand I have one friend who turned off the GPS because she didn’t want that “slut” telling her where to go. Go figure.
To be connected or not to be connected, that is the question for the well-off in the 21st century. Fortunately, I retired before Email and cell phones and pagers and ________ whatever latest tech machinery tries to connect you to all the electronic lies and corporate propaganda that tries to pass itself off as important. Remember how candidate Obama used the the Internet and various social media to “connect” to millions of voters and to raise millions of dollars for his campaign of “change.” Boy, did the voters ever get snookered. More war, more imperialism, more corporatism, more Royalism. At least if Insane McCain had won, Democrats could still be against our twin imperial occupations… We got “change” with Obama; he just didn’t bother to tell us that he was going to make things worse…
People were probably happier and better off before the invention of cell phones, Fascist Noise (faux nudes), internet, personal computers, satellites, cable TV, movies, radio, automobiles, photography, telephones and telegraphs.
We have been on the road for the last 3 months. We were able to stay in touch with work and our kids, and I kept up my contributions to this site. I kind of like being in touch on my own schedule, so we use computers, but not cell phones.
How do we vacation in the digital era? Easy: separate laptops.
I am one of those virtual employees who work from home via secure virtual private network and a company-owned laptop. On my most recent vacation, a laptop and cellphone went with me, just as paperback books have always done. But the laptop was NOT my work laptop. No VPN. No email client installed. Just web browser, digital music, family photos, and drawing software. The forwarding service that autoroutes work calls from my phantom work number to my real, personal cell phone was turned off, so the mobile was no longer my “work” phone at all.
So I don’t think things have changed much at all. Yes, if you are obsessive-compulsive about work, it is easier than ever to ruin your health and madden your family by carrying it along on vacation. But is also easier to simply post a virtual gone fishin’ sign and simply disappear–even if you never leave home.