Surviving the post-vacation blues

Eve Tahmincioglu • Profile • E-mail

Ah, Labor Day. It was a great idea conceived in the late 1800s by a New York-based labor union to give workers across the nation a day off as a way to recognize their hard work.

But the holiday, sadly, has become synonymous with the end of the vacation season for many Americans.

Lately it seems many workers — who are overworked, fearful of layoffs and struggling to stretch their paychecks — are suffering from the post-vacation blues.

There’s a great episode of "The Office" called “Back From Vacation” where the fictional manager Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell, just can’t seem to leave his Jamaican vacation behind, so much so that he plays steel drums in the office and wears a tiny braid in his hair.

The show is right on target. It’s getting harder to let go of your vacation time and start concentrating on work time.

One reason may be that many workers don't really take vacations.

“A day off from work no longer means a vacation,” says Marjorie Savage, absence management director with financial services company The Hartford. “Many workers are spending their days off doing stressful things, such as chores or caring for family. Trouble is, we all need downtime to recharge our bodies and our minds.”

A study by The Hartford found that even when workers do get days off, only 42 percent use those days to go on a vacation, and only 9 percent said they did something enjoyable during their days away from work.

For workers who do take a real vacation, it may be hard to leave it behind.

“I went on a three-day trip with four of my close friends. I was so sad when I got back to work that I considered moving to the location we were just visiting and trying to start a life there,” said Joie Tamkin, a manager for a baby products retailer. “I even enlisted one of my friends from the trip in the idea, and she was all for it.”

After a few days back in the reality of the daily grind, they thought better of their impetuous plans.

“I then decided to plan another vacation so I had something to look forward to,” she explains.

The post-vacation blues
The affliction of post-vacation blues may not have made it into psychology books, but it is something many workers say they're struggling with lately.

“There’s a lot of negativity out there right now,” says Dr. Robert Puff, a clinical psychologist and the author of “Anger Work: How To Express Your Anger and Still Be Kind.”

“You have people already grumbling at work when they keep reading and hearing about people  losing their jobs, unemployment being up,” he says. “So when people go on vacation, they say, ‘This is great.’”

Employees are also overworked and in need of camaraderie, adds Ronald Humphrey, associate professor of management at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of “Affect and Emotion: New Directions in Management Theory and Research.”

They are overworked because many businesses have cut back on staffing and handed more projects to those left behind, Humphrey explains.

And, he adds, office or factory friendships with co-workers are suffering because companies are constantly reorganizing teams, and opportunities to socialize and have fun are becoming few and far between.

“When you go on vacation you spend a lot of time with family and friends, with people who love and care about you,” he says. “Then you come back to the office, and it may be cold and emotionless.”

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