To accrue, to enjoy. Perchance to unuse

You accrue them, enjoy them and unuse them. What are they?
Nowadays, because of Ryanair, the answer comes immediately: holidays!
For anybody who has been into hotels for some time, this is not an unknown topic. Assuming that Ryanair’s problem (or part of its problem) is that of clearing the backlog of its pilots’ accrued holidays, this is certainly nothing exclusive. The hospitality industry has many things in common with airlines, and holiday entitlement is no doubt one of them.
Enjoy or unuse, that is the question.
To accrue, to enjoy.
To enjoy, perchance to unuse: aye, there’s the rub,
for in that dream of holidays, what dreams may come,
when we have shuffled off the labour turmoil,
must give us pause.
Shakespeare forgive! We did not resist the temptation to borrow (and mistreat) his Hamlet monologue: it fits perfectly. How many times, on taking over the management of a hotel, we have come across staff with unused holidays of giant proportions? Unused, and therefore to be disposed of. Some people saw them as treasury bills: tucked away savings which would bear fruit in due time, in the severance remuneration, revalued to final salary level.
But the reason is probably to be found precisely in Shakespeare’s text: the fear of detaching from work. The fear to spend time with the family. The fear that others may invade our territory, in our absence. The fear that some co-worker may prove to be more capable than we are. Allergic to social life, after years and years of permanent effective service with companies (hotels) that never pause.
Finally, with the new millennium, we have found some balance and the problem of unused holiday has quickly dissolved.
Smartphone, tablet, wi-fi. We can work anywhere, we are always connected. So we can enjoy holidays and get done with work, simultaneously. Or possibly, we can enjoy work and get done with holidays.
P.S.: it may be useful to remember that, if we have accrued and not used our sacrosanct holidays, before coming to the point of their disposal, we have the possibility to recycle them by giving them to needy colleagues (solidarity holidays). You can find more food for thought in corriere.it , in Danilo Taino’s article with a loud and clear title: “Why holidays are a human right for Germans”.
For the lazy, this is the link http://www.corriere.it/opinioni/17agosto15/perche-vacanze-tedeschi-sono-diritto-umano-f8c7ddee-812b-11e7-a91b-263e95546556.shtml