Vacation means no work

.. and not being available. For anything! Do you have a hard time letting go of work during your vacation? 

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  It’s your time off — relax. Turn off your phone and don’t check your email.

• You’re just going to answer this one phone call. You’re just going to quickly check your email.
  Do you have a hard time letting go of work during your vacation? In Sweden you should feel no such guilt. Here are tips from the stress expert Giorgio Grossi: A stressfree vacation

• ”You should not feel guilty about not being available during your vacation,” says Martin Wästfelt, general counsel at the trade union Unionen (a white collar union in the private sector). ”The whole point of being on vacation is to not be available at work.” According to the Swedish ”semesterlag,” or vacation regulations, every Swede has the right to be fully off work during his or her vacation. In spite of this, however, many do still work; they answer their work phone and email. According to professor in psychology, Gunnar Aronsson, this may have to do with a fuzzy line between what’s voluntary and what’s expected or forced. ”When a person’s away, there should be substitutes, otherwise personnel may worry during their time off and have too much to do upon return.” This may be why Swedes tend to work even when they’re not supposed to. But Wästfelt says there’s a solution: ”If your employer doesn’t take the initiative to a discussion, then do it yourself and clear out the rules, decide how you may disturb each other during vacation and during the rest of the year as well. Perhaps it’s worth it to exchange a few hours of work for one or two extra days off.”