All work and all play

I was on campus for only about 10 minutes today to attend to an annoying administrative task (placing check-marks in seven little squares to approve December's departmental expenditures, which seems like a ridiculous reason to drive into town, but it had to be done by the end of the month so there I was), but in that short span of time I ran into four of my colleagues. This happens every time I go to campus during down times: Sunday afternoons, Friday nights, weekends, holidays, early in the morning--there's always somebody else there working. It occurs to me that we academic types just aren't very good at taking time off.

If you need more evidence, look at how tens of thousands of us spend our Christmas holidays: attending academic conferences. I'm not at MLA this year but I've been there before and there's nothing relaxing about it. Any event that requires me to prominently display my credentials on my chest is not a vacation, and any event that involves interviewing or being interviewed is the antithesis of a holiday.

I've thought about this problem and I think the reason academics are so bad at taking time off is that so much of our job simply doesn't look like work. Grading papers, teaching, and attending committee meetings all appear to be work, but everything else I do for work also looks a lot like what I do for play: reading, writing, thinking. I can do those things just about anywhere, and I do, which means work and play intermingle promiscuously. Since I'm always sort of working, why not do it at the office?

And if that kind of logic takes me to the office when no one has any business being there, I shouldn't be surprised to find others there doing the same thing.