I like Matthew Yglesias but his lack of real world experience sometimes causes him to have revelations that are blindingly obvious to those of us working in offices. Of course you are judged on how much of your vacation you actually used. And everyone knows you have to work an 80 hour week before and after your vacation to make up for the time you are away. And you are expected to take calls and keep up with emails while you are on vacation.

Until recently my company had a forced shutdown period at the end of the year and the good thing about that was everyone was theoretically forced to take off so there was no shame in doing so, and there wasn't as much of a build-up while you were out. But even then there were plenty of people who made sure to let everyone know that they would still be working because they just had too much important stuff going on.

Add to this the fact that everyone involved has a bullshit job as per the post below, and it's just this really weird game of self-torture that we play.