A few days ago, I tried to get on a web site for a local utility company, to get a copy of a recent bill. I had entered the usual ID and password, but this time the site also wanted me to answer a security question. Problem was, I had not selected the question that I was being asked to answer. I tried logging in again just to make sure I got my credentials correct, but the same question popped up. I finally pushed the button saying that I had forgotten the answer (really, I never knew it in the first place!). And after some back and forth, I got my credentials reset and I successfully logged on, with a new security question and answer.<\/p>\n
One reason that I knew that the unrecognized security question was not mine was that it dealt with vacations. “What is your favorite vacation spot?” I would never have selected that question, because . . . well, I don’t have a favorite vacation spot. Actually, I don’t have any vacation spots at all. I basically don’t take vacations; I use up my vacation time at work by sprinkling days off throughout the year. But as to taking 2 continuous weeks off and getting on a plane or driving all day to get to some wondrous spot . . . no, I just don’t do that. I’m just not a vacation person.<\/p>\n
Why not? Well, partly because I’m trying to save up as much as possible to get ready for retirement. A good vacation trip might cost a few grand (or so says my brother, who enjoys his occasional week on a Caribbean island). That in itself might mean an extra month or two that I would need to keep working, as opposed to retiring a month or two earlier.<\/p>\n
Am I alone in my aversion to what was once an accepted part of the middle-class American dream (and still seems that way to the internet security question designers)? The NY Times had an article<\/a> saying that “the American vacation is dying”, mostly because of job anxiety, i.e. fear of getting fired. A CNN article<\/a> said that a recent poll found that “only 57% of U.S. workers use up all of the days they’re entitled to, compared with 89% of workers in France”. A blogger named Ann Althouse said<\/a><\/p>\n Your living quarters are reasonably comfortable, your job is somewhat enjoyable, and you like your town and at least some of your friends and acquaintances. Why go to the trouble of going somewhere else, where every day is going to cost you lots of extra money, and where you have no guarantee you’ll be one bit happier than you are at home?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n One of her responders added<\/p>\n I get a lot more out of five weeks worth of one-day “vacations” than I do out of a full week off. Taking the full week seems to require a trip somewhere, or it simply ends up being a mass of empty do-nothing days . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Another said<\/p>\n The extreme unpleasantness (especially for America’s increasing population of people of size) of air travel these days puts something of a damper on travel.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Is driving any better? Those interstate highways have become demo death-derbies against endless hordes of speeding long-distance multi-trailer trucks. Vacation definitely ain’t the Sunday joy ride that it once was. <\/p>\n In addition to my own financial reasons, I don’t like idea that I would come back to a desk stacked with messages and e-mails and voicemails that needed tending to ASAP. The first day back from a vacation trip would be a real bummer. A vacation experience would have to be really, really good to make up for the down-draft of getting back to the office and facing two weeks worth of typical mini-crises all at once. And from what I hear and remember from my own past vacation experiences, most vacations aren’t all that good!<\/p>\n So I’ll use my days off (but not all of them; in my 13 years with the County, I’ve never used all of my yearly vacation allocation). But don’t ask me where my favorite vacation spot is . . . unless you allow me to say “HOME”!<\/p>\n