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Comment by bbitmaster | Hacker News Reader

I never understood why it's considered strange to take time off to just stay home. We spend so much time away from home, and then when we finally take a week off, we're expected to go through all the stress of travelling just to return back to work when its over?

What if someone actually wants to stay home, and relaxing and relieving stress is playing a new video game or working on some personal project, or even just you know... resting? I did not think the work/life balance meant never having any time to yourself. Even on weekends, people ask "What are your plans?" as if "nothing" is the wrong answer.

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> What if someone actually wants to stay home, and relaxing and relieving stress is playing a new video game or working on some personal project, or even just you know... resting?

It's the "just you know...resting" one that might be a problem. It's not the resting itself that is a problem. Everybody needs to rest. The problem is when people need to take PTO in order to get time for that rest.

Any reasonable job already includes enough time off that workers should be able to get all the rest they need without having to use up some of their PTO.

I don't think it's strange to enjoy some time off at home, but also think it's bothersome for it to commonly be a "do we rest or have a vacation this year" kind of situation from the other extreme.

I have a feeling the problem here is more to do with reporting on a loosely worded poll than anything else though.

I don't know if I see the expectation part of it. A common reply, at least around me, to "what are your plans?" is "enjoying family time" or "just catching up on things" and that's met with some appreciative remark. However, in companies/neighborhoods with more wealthier and type A people, I could see relaxing seeming strange.

The major root of this is the Protestant work ethic, which leads very directly to the idea that your only value on this earth is the work that you do.

So any time you are spending resting is, effectively, sinful.

Most people don't put it that way these days, but the basic idea is still deeply embedded in so much of American culture.

I don't think vacation would be considered work under the Protestant work ethic even if it requires effort to plan?

No, that's probably true. That's where the last part of my post applies: this is rarely a conscious application of the Protestant work ethic, and more just the way it has shaped our culture to say that rest for rest's sake, and especially taking time off from work just for that, is Wrong. Specifically, it's Lazy.

Vacation is a normal thing: culturally, we have a strong understanding of it, and an agreement that going to visit another country, or to Disneyworld, or for a camping trip, is what you're supposed to do with paid time off.

But just resting? Well, that's just selfish!

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