Vacation is as vacation does

I have a friend in the finance business who convinced himself for several years that by taking his family to Hawaii for their vacation, he was hacking the time zone system. He could get almost a full day of work in from, say, 3 o’clock in the morning to 8 o’clock, when his children woke up. And then he could hang out with them on the beach, by the pool, snorkeling, whatever, feeling stress-free.

After all, the markets back east were closed. Everyone he worked with was essentially done for the day. He was officially on vacation but also not on vacation. It was, he said, a brilliant strategy.