WHEN is a holiday not a holiday? When you BlackBerry away your days on the beach, that’s when.

The whole idea about getting away from it all is to get away. But some of us just can’t let go of the reins for even a moment, whether it’s because we’re terrified we miss something in our absence that undermines our position at work, or because the boss keeps us ensnared and on our toes with demands for conference calls or responses to emails that we ignore at our peril.

In the UK we get more statutory paid leave – 28 days – than anywhere else in the world apart from France where workers get 30. That said, we don’t get as many public holidays as some countries – in Austria they might only get 22 days annual leave but add 13 days public holidays on top of that and you’re laughing.

But in the United States there is no legal obligation to provide any paid leave at all and most people grab little more than a fortnight away from the office, and then it’s in dribs and drabs.

That’s why the wives and kids of Wall Street barons decamp to summer playgrounds for up to 10 weeks at a time, with dads only getting their break over a long Independence Day weekend or by flying in to be with their families on a Friday night before decamping back to the fray early on a Monday morning. If they’re lucky they might make a week of it, but only if they spend their mornings on the phone or their laptop meeting the demands of the control freaks back in the office.

So it’s not really a holiday at all. And calling it a vacation when you might only vacate the office in body rather than spirit has to be the most ridiculous misnomer in American parlance of them all. No wonder business moguls burn themselves out and their kids don’t really know who they are… Back in the office, getting ready to go on holiday leaves you needing a break more than ever. Cramming in two or three weeks of anticipated work into the days before you depart creates a whirling dervish that collapses in a heap of exhaustion once they’ve finally handed over the reins and switched off their office computer for the final time.

It hardly seems worth it to flog yourself to death in the days leading up to the start of your annual leave in the hope of having a break with a clear conscience and without a backward glance. You’re so knackered from busting a gut to get to the finish line that you spend the first week away completely comatose, so the holiday doesn’t really kick in until the last few days before you’re about to come home. And by then you’re gearing yourself up to what might await you on your return so in reality you probably haven’t got away from it all at all….

And when you go through all that angst to get your annual break is critical, because it’s a minefield of availability and fitting in for the sake of harmonious office politics.

There are always those who come back from their summer holiday and mark next year’s on the calendar before anyone has thought beyond what public holidays they can blag at Christmas.

Then there’s the right-is-on-my-side type who says they can’t possibly take their break in other than the school holidays because a) they’ll get fined by the council for taking their kids out of school at any other time or b) their partner is a teacher and can’t have a ‘proper’ holiday at any other time of the year.

They’re the ones who are very keen to point out that as you don’t have any kids you should fit in with those who do. This is regardless of the fact that you might want to take a holiday at the height of the season in the mistaken belief that you have an equal right to enjoy the best of the weather along with everyone else. Not if you don’t have kids you don’t… So when you’ve managed to squeeze available dates out of the rapidly filling-up office calendar somewhere around the back end of summer when the nights are drawing in or when spring is just around the corner, the boss tells you that you can’t possibly go then as that’s when he’ll be away… No wonder folk give up and bravely state that they’re taking ‘just a few odd days here and there.’ And it’ll be fine because they’ve always got their smartphone…