Note: This article pertaining to Unlimited Vacation Time: Should More Companies Adopt This Policy? was originally published on Friday, September 26, 2014 at 12:49 in the afternoon and has been updated.
Richard Branson — who is the founder of the Virgin Group — has believed that people should be able to take time off from work whenever they want with no questions asked, according to this article at his official weblog.
An increasing number of companies had been implementing this policy in the years since that article was published — but some of them seem to be pulling back on that policy in recent years, as finding companies with some semblance of that policy seems to be scarcer in 2025.
Unlimited Vacation Time: Should More Companies Adopt This Policy?
I agree with the concept of unlimited vacation time in general — to a point, anyway.
In my opinion, how much vacation time I receive is not as important as structuring my life in a way with which I enjoy work as much as I enjoy being on vacation.
Writing The Gate With Brian Cohen for greater than nineteen years has been fun for me. I am an artist who enjoys photography, graphic design, and writing. I have had a minor acting “career” on the side; and I have written songs and lyrics even though I cannot read music and can barely play an instrument.
Give me a job such as accounting, and you may as well shoot me now and not wait until you get home. I need creativity. I crave creativity.
There were times when I was matriculated in post-graduate school to earn my Master of Business Administration degree — go ahead, make fun of me — where I was miserable. Weighted average cost of capital? I never thought I would understand or remember that; but now I cannot forget it — just as I cannot forget endoplasmic reticulum which I learned in biology in high school…
…but I would not base my life on those…er…things.
On the other hand, you might thoroughly enjoy accounting. I salute you if you enjoy being a caregiver or a medical professional who is honestly devoted to helping people — almost to the point of altruism. I would not want to do that for a living.
Whenever anyone asks me about my passion, I usually answer travel. Travel is what I enjoy. I have always enjoyed it — despite its shortcomings. I will most likely always enjoy it; and I want to do more of it. However, there are people who actually — gasp! — dislike travel.
What we enjoy is all based on a number of factors, including the paradigms with which we were raised; as well as how our brains are “wired.” To paraphrase a quote from Stephen Brock, a retired professor from the school where I earned my post-graduate degree and taught me most of what I know about executive and managerial coaching, which I also enjoy: “You are born an elephant. You will die an elephant. It makes no sense to try to be an anteater. The goal is to be a happy elephant.”
I do enjoy helping people through The Gate With Brian Cohen. If even one person leaves a comment thanking me for posting information which helped him or her with travel or to win a contest, that significantly brightens my day.
I suppose that what I am attempting to say is that work should be like vacation. People should not have to feel trapped in jobs they do not like…
…and although I would never want to be a janitor, someone has to do it — and there are people who enjoy that as well. Everyone is gone for the night while janitors laboriously keep a work environment clean, which is one perk to that job. Another is no fighting rush hour traffic. How about having the day all to yourself when you are not sleeping?
Allow me to quote a gentleman named Randy Petersen, who said a couple of things to me repeatedly over the years — including at the BAcon conference in Las Vegas during the third weekend of September of 2014 which coincided with his birthday: “Every day is like a birthday to me, 365 days a year” and “I am the luckiest guy in the world with the best job in the world.”
Did I get that right, Randy — even if I paraphrased what you have told me instead of outright quoting you?
Final Boarding Call
I have been told in recent years that unlimited vacation time is really just a gimmick that if employees attempted to take full advantage of it, they would be summarily dismissed. I cannot personally confirm if that is true.
For me — as you can probable already surmise — doing a variety of things is what keeps me happy…
…and if I can get paid for what I enjoy doing, that is even better. We all deserve to be paid for our efforts. We should all be able to wake up in the morning and say “Wow — I cannot believe I am actually getting paid for doing what I enjoy doing.”
In other words: work should be the vacation we all enjoy; whereas the vacation time should be periods of temporary rest and reflection — to “vacate” from our everyday lives in an effort to recharge and continue to do what we enjoy doing.
Am I wrong? What are your thoughts?
Photograph ©2019 by Brian Cohen.
