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Holidays are to be enjoyed. But of course there’s no obligation to do so. We thought we’d better make that clear before embarking on an explanation of this issue’s Q&A, which tackles the topical subject of engineers’ holidays. A little bit of light relief at a frothy time of the year, we thought. Ah yes.

Ah no. Well, not in every case, anyway. It turns out that for a small minority of readers holidays are something of a sore subject. And this year in particular…?

Work and play: Only 24% of you access office emails while on holiday

The thing about 2009 is that you might come to the conclusion that life is grim and that fripperies such as holidays are something that could be scaled back on, if not dispensed with entirely. But have they been?

We asked how many readers were taking the “traditional” two-week summer break. The answer is 43%, but if you added in all the people who said that they’d be taking small variants on this theme – three weeks, say, or 10 days – then you’re well into the majority. It’s still the main holiday period for UK engineers.

The two-weeks-at-the-British-seaside routine was set half a century or more ago, when places of work often closed for a break in the summer. Do shutdowns happen now? Not much: only 9% said their workplace was closing for a set period across the summer, though a few others, including some nationally important companies, are apparently considering it. In any case, the changed nature of engineering means that most engineers are not tied to production any more, and it’s production sites that tend to stop for a week or two in the summer.

The meaty questions in this Q&A sandwich are whether engineers have altered holiday plans for 2009. The general answer seems to be No: we go on as before.

Had concern over their own personal circumstances led them to scale back on their holiday plans, we asked? Yes, said 22%, but No said 78%. Had concern over the change in the exchange rate between the pound and the euro caused a revision in holiday plans this year, we asked? Yes, said 23%, No, said 77%.

It looks pretty consistent stuff, but it does also produce some slightly downbeat responses, to the effect that engineers can’t afford holidays anyway, even in good times. Oh, come off it.

There are also quite a lot of write-in comments to the effect that exchange rates in particular are no bother to those not intending to go abroad: our next question asks how many of the 426 respondents intend to take their “main” holiday of the year in the UK, and it’s just short of half, at 45%.

There’s anecdotal evidence throughout this survey that engineers are among the trend towards taking greater numbers of shorter-duration holidays across the year.

But what about the “trip of a lifetime”? Had our readers during their working lives taken a holiday lasting a month or more, to travel to outlandish places, perhaps, or to follow or take part in a sporting tour?

The answer is that relatively few have done this: only 18%, and in a few cases the idea seemed to come as something of a surprise. Patently for those with families and other commitments, it’s more difficult, but several seemed genuinely never to have considered this an option, and a couple thanked us for the suggestion. Strange.

But maybe that’s because engineers like their work so much that they don’t really want to be parted from it for any length of time. We asked our readers if, in general, they tended to access their work emails while on holiday. Refreshingly, only 24% do, and much of the majority who don’t seemed pretty appalled by the idea.

It’s a bit different with phone calls, though. We asked whether readers were happy for colleagues to contact them during holidays if matters came up concerning their jobs or responsibilities, and while several people jibbed a bit at the word “happy”, there’s a majority, 58%, who said Yes, they’d be willing to be contacted.

There are provisos in this answer. A large number of the Yes contingent, possibly a majority, said they were willing to be contacted in an emergency or if something came up that would materially affect them when they returned to work. There were, though, several grumbles that this willingness had been abused in the past and quite a few wrote in, with apparent glee, that they tried to holiday in places where mobile reception was minimal.

There are a few grumbles attached to the question, Do you take all your holiday entitlement? Yes, said 81%, and No, said 17%. You might expect whinges from the 17% but there are also some from the majority to the effect that holidays often seem begrudged by employers and they end up with a lot of days to be taken in November and December, which isn’t always when you want to go on holiday. Is there anything different about engineers in all of this?

Well, maybe. Our final question asked whether, at the end of their holidays, our readers are usually happy to get back to work. Exactly half of the 426 respondents said No, and several of them were openly incredulous that anyone could answer differently. Returning to the pile of emails seemed to be the biggest bugbear.

But 41% said they were happy to get back to work: in varying degrees, they said they enjoyed their jobs and didn’t want to be on holiday all the time, or, as a bare minimum they recognised that work was necessary to be able to afford holidays to enjoy. Just a few said they’d have had enough of the family by the end of the break. And a couple said they really didn’t enjoy holidays at all.
Well, that’s their choice.

JP

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