Having No Holidays - Is that Sustainable

[DeludedAussie]

I ve been working for 18 months flat on a contract and have had no time off

Frankly speaking I feel exhausted at the moment but I just wonder how long people on here have been without taking any time off

In my free time I normally try to get away for the weekends and go abroad - Can I factor in abnother 18 months with no time off?

[Mr.Whippy]

Frankly speaking I feel exhausted at the moment

Can I factor in abnother 18 months with no time off?

No.

HTH.

[stek]

I ve been working for 18 months flat on a contract and have had no time off

Frankly speaking I feel exhausted at the moment but I just wonder how long people on here have been without taking any time off

In my free time I normally try to get away for the weekends and go abroad - Can I factor in abnother 18 months with no time off?

No way mate, I did 30 months including most weekends - earned loads but now I can't stop - can't relax, the idea of holiday scares me tulipless. I'm permie now until/if things pick up, but even now I can't take a holiday, don't do it!

Even now tho I finished at 15:00 today, I've got three IBM pSeries servers here I'm trying to setup, why?

Oddly enough I still see myself as fundamentally a lazy shirker, perhaps that was 30 years ago certainly not now, but I still feel it...

[nomadd]

I ve been working for 18 months flat on a contract and have had no time off

Frankly speaking I feel exhausted at the moment but I just wonder how long people on here have been without taking any time off

In my free time I normally try to get away for the weekends and go abroad - Can I factor in another 18 months with no time off?

17 months with no break for me at the moment. Plan to push that to 24 months. Then take 6+ months off. Had 7.5 months off before the current bout of work started (although some of that was because the market was dead.) Always kind of done things that way: work my balls off for a year or two, then walk away from it for 6 months or so. Suits me. Then again, might not suit others.

[thunderlizard]

Maybe. I'm not much of a holidays person - went 5 years without one on one contract. I don't do holidays mid-contract, so regularly go 2-3 years without any break longer than 4 days at Christmas & Easter. But like nomadd, I do take big breaks between contracts.

[wantacontract]

when I first went into contracting, I went 30 months without holiday, but since I've had:

1. 3 month break - wedding & honeymoon & looking for work.
2. 2 month break - holiday & looking for work
3. 4 months break - And this latest longest enforced break - wife requesting me to stay at home during the winter months last year (the snow and the cold), she didn't have to try very hard and then this year looking for work.

In truth, apart from my first break where I got married and had earnt such a huge wedge I wasn't concerned at all, but break 2 and this last one made me feel a bit edgy and keen to get back to work.

[TykeMerc]

I did 3 1/2 years non stop for a client from early 1997, I didn't work many weekends, but evening and overnight work on migrations was common, I only took bank holidays off. However I was living under a mile from the 2 main sites I worked on, could come and go pretty much at will and it was fine.

If I'd had to commute and stick to a 9-5 monitored regime I couldn't/ wouldn't have done it.

[lukemg]

Worked 270 days one year (if you only take weekends + BH's off you work 253 !)
Found you can go fairly long term with one day off a week but a full weekend will take a big toll. Wouldn't do that now, I get enforced breaks between contracts that I don't really enjoy but do count as a break.
Factor some hols, live a little...

[rsingh]

Ask yourself why are working like this. If you can't answer it instantly, take some time off to work it out. Preferably away from a computer, abroad, with friends.

If you do know your goal, then you probably wont reach it due to turnout. So, take some time off to help achieve it. Preferably away from a computer, abroad, with friends.

[SueEllen]

If you dropped dead tomorrow (and it happened to one my parents' of working age) would you be pleased that you spent the last week at work feeling sh*t?

If the answer is no then take some time off. If you don't want to spend any money then take a long weekend off at home doing extremely little.