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Can Execs Disconnect From The Office While On Vacation?

Um. Nope. According to a recent study by The Ladders, nearly 80% of all executives plan to take a vacation this summer. While fully one-third said they'd refrain from checking in at all, just over half said they'd touch base with the office periodically when on vacation.

Mobile e-mail-capable smartphones are great tools for staying in touch with the office. And that's part of the problem. While they may enhance productivity for on-the-go workers who need to remain in constant contact with their e-mail when out of the office, that connectivity often seeps into family time and even vacations.

It may seem an innocent enough notion to "just check" your e-mail on a device such as a BlackBerry for anything critical when presented with a few spare moments on vacation. The odds are, though, that you'll get sucked into responding to a few e-mails (even noncritical ones) and before you know it, you've missed happy hour in the pool and your spouse and/or kids may want to beat you up.

Of the execs polled, 34.6% said they could completely disengage from the office and make the most of the summer vacations. Still, that leaves the majority of execs at least peeking periodically at work-related issues when on vacation. Not only will 51% of them check in to make sure the ship isn't sinking, 33.1% admitted that they never leave home without their laptops and BlackBerrys, vacation or not.

Just last week AOL announced the results of a new poll about e-mail addiction in the United States. I think the results underscore the blurring lines between professional and personal time in our lives.

How many of you find yourselves answering work-related e-mails at 10 p.m. while watching TV? What about vacations -- will everyone really be disconnected, or remain at least partially connected?

C'mon, fess up.

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