Recently I have run into a number of people, both employees and consultants who can’t seem to separate themselves from their work while on vacation. This behavior is extremely mystifying to me. A related phenomenon is people who won’t/don’t use their vacation. I’ve identified 4 personalities that exhibit these tendencies.

• William the Worker doesn’t have a separate identity from his work identity and feels lost doing something different than work tasks.
• Essential Ellen believes that without her things will fall apart.
• Charlie the Consultant feels the need to work wherever he is because of the financial pressures of hours not worked being hours not billed.
• Hacker Helen loves her work so much she’d rather do it that anything else and typically works at home after work for "fun" regularly and vacations are no different.

Are you William, Ellen, Charlie or Helen? How do you justify working on vacation or not taking your vacation?