More Than Half Of Us Lie About Wi-Fi Access When We Go On Vacation

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It’s happened to all of us. You go on vacation to relax, but the Wi-Fi makes it impossible to ignore the work emails popping into your inbox faster than you can turn off your notifications, and if you don’t work in a traditional office where you get official time off, or if your boss just doesn’t have boundaries, that could mean you get roped in to working. According to Allianz Global Assistance, almost 65 percent of Americans report that they end up doing work on vacation. That’s also why almost 49 percent of workers surveyed said that when they go on vacation, they lie about having access to Wi-Fi and cell reception.

Millennials, who are likely more glued to their phones in general compared with other generations, are the most likely to use this tactic – 59 percent said that using this excuse is okay when on vacation, as compared to 49 percent of Gen X and 32 percent of Boomers.

Even so, it turns out that 74 percent of Millennials do end up checking their work emails while they’re on vacation, mostly so that when they get back to the office, they aren’t overloaded with work to get through. In fact, 64 percent of millennials said they would gladly just keep going through their emails while they’re away if it meant that they could take more vacations, which is the opposite of Boomers, who would rather unplug completely while they’re away, even if it meant taking less vacations.

This is, in some ways, a uniquely American problem. The average American worker gets 12 days of vacation every year but only takes 10, while in other countries, like the U.K., France, Spain, Brazil, and Sweden, people get 25-30 days off a year – and actually take them. In France, it’s even illegal for businesses with more than 50 employees to require their workers to check email off the clock.

It would be nice to see that become the norm stateside, but in the meantime, I guess most of us will just have to content ourselves with a little white lie to the boss about our internet capabilities when we’re on vacation. Here’s hoping they won’t be paying attention when we start posting our vacay pics to Instagram.

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