So this has been sitting in my Evernote list for…only a week. Huh. Thought it was longer.
Holidays are one of those things that, as a #freelancer, I paid little attention outside the context of who needed what by when. It was a way to judge the eb and flow of things. And no client work on a holiday, like Memorial Day, meant time to address other business matters.
And in America, there is no real big holiday between New Year’s and Memorial Day. Not to say there aren’t holidays, there just aren’t ones observed by the nation as a whole. They’re the “floating days.”
Canada has a very different idea about holidays. There are signs and ads posted all over, asking people to vote for a new holiday. Some try to have clever phrasing, like “less time with spreadsheets, more time with family.” Which, it turns out, is the point of voting for a new holiday.
Family Day, it turns out, is an actual holiday, in some Provinces. And that is another distinction. There are nation-wide holidays, and Province holidays. That’s kind of true in the States. Like Kasmir Pulaski Day. It’s a holiday in Illinois. Or rather, a day off from school.
Apparently British Columbia isn’t a fan of not having a day off in February, so there’s a movement to create a Family Day, and follow some of the other Provinces.
Can you imagine a petition for a new holiday in the States? Then again, we’re the country of workaholics and have one of the worst holiday policies. We fear for our jobs if we take time off outside federally mandated holidays. We pride ourselves on working to the bone.
Granted, that mentality is shifting, or was, before the recession. And some companies have adopted the no vacation policy where you take how much time you need when you need it.
There were some articles not long ago that talked about companies adopting “unlimited vacation” or “no vacation policies” where employees can what how much time off they want, when they want, or feel, they want to do so. I can only guess at the scheduling complexity of large organizations for such a policy, but for smaller companies, that seems less of an obstacle. Like with many things, communication is key.
I still have an American mentality of vacation though. Taking time off, while sounds enjoyable, brings with it a tidal wave of anxiety. Some of that is due to having been a department of one for…um…a long time. Roughly since 2005-2006. I take a day, everything stops. Not a big deal. A long weekend? Little more complicated. A week? Eep! In hindsight, it was easier #freelancing. I could always take work with me, or take advantage of downtime during those nation-wide holidays. A couple hours here and there on other business stuff, and then the rest of the time for fun. Best of both worlds, really. Wasn’t a mountain of work or email waiting for me, and I still unplugged, as it were.
So a challenge I see is finding a balance up here in Canada, where they get more holidays and have a very different concept of “vacation” than myself. And for me, there is large travel factor involved. Going home isn’t a quick hour or two trip. It’s a four hour flight, after a couple hours, at each end, at the airport.
A trip south, though, to say Seattle, or California, is doable. I’ve heard Canadians make long weekends out of those. I hear the train ride from Vancouver to San Francisco is also quite nice.
Cue Green Day:
I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our livesThis is our lives on holiday
Dream and differ from my old vacation habits, really.
First things first though: moving into and setting up my apartment. The moving part, at least moving the stuff already here in Vancouver, may very well be the easiest part.
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