At Work: Don't let work horn in on your vacation

• More than 3 in 5 U.S. vacationers with jobs plan to work on their personal trips this year
• E-mail is the biggest vacation intruder%2C especially since the advance of smartphones
• Biggest barrier to getting away totally is the workload%2C lack of backup back at office

Your odds of being struck by lightning are greater than your odds of going on vacation and being free from work-related e-mails and calls.

OK, perhaps I exaggerate a tad. But having just returned from a week's vacation, I speak with authority.

It's never been easy to leave town and put work behind you. But in the old days before the Internet and text messaging when I would write about this subject, certain safeguards let you head off while knowing clients would be taken care of and disasters avoided without your immediate attention. And people would let you get away in peace for a few days.

Now, there is nearly no way to get away unscathed.

So-called work-life balance surveys concur. One such survey — ironically conducted by TeamViewer, a company that offers remote access to your or others' computers any time, anywhere — found that 61% of employed American vacationers plan to work during their summer vacations.

The issue is getting worse. In a similar survey the company conducted last year, they found that 52% of employed Americans said they would work during their summer vacations.

What are we working on at the beach or while traipsing through quaint, historic villages? The survey says 38% of workers are reading work-related electronic mail; 32% want access to a document; 30% receive work-related calls; 24% take work-related text messages; and 20% are asked to do work by a boss, client or colleague.

Yes, I admit, I went prepared, just like the 69% in the survey who said they brought a "work-capable" device with them. Sixty one percent planned to bring up to three such devices. (I only took two.)

Since I am self-employed, who else would respond to e-mail? People expect you to get back to them. Quickly.

Using a one-size-fits-all automatic I'm-on-vacation-let's-talk-when-I-get-back response is not necessarily a solution and tells spammers they have hit the jackpot.

I'm sure someone will write me to say some auto-reply mechanism takes care of that. But when you are your own boss or have no one else to cover for you, responding is almost a must.

Of the more than 2,000 adults surveyed in the online non-random poll, 83% agree that having to work during vacation is becoming more common in America.

But workers are not happy about it.

If the boss asks them to work during vacation, 34% said they would do the work but not happily; 24% feel that their boss doesn't respect their time; 22% would say no; 13% would turn off their devices and ignore the request altogether; 11% would pretend they didn't see the incoming message.

Only 14% said they would be happy to do the work.

Those from Generation Y — ages 18 to 24 — are statistically more likely than any other age group to say they expect to work during vacation. Eighty two percent expect to bring a work-capable device, and 79% expect to use it.

To have an actual vacation from work in the old days, I suggested workers set up plans for as many contingencies as possible before they leave town, things like asking co-workers to cover for you and giving your customers advance notice to anticipate their needs. Both are still decent options for some.

But too many offices are stretched thin these days without co-workers who can pitch in. With communication moving so quickly and everyone expected to react within nanoseconds, it's difficult to put off dealing with issues until you return.

What has not changed is that we are not work-capable devices.

We are humans who need breaks from time to time. The best we can do is to insist others understand that, and as I came to peace three days into my vacation, not to ask ourselves to be anything but that.

Career consultant Andrea Kay is the author of This Is How To Get Your Next Job: An Inside Look at What Employers Really Want. Reach her at andrea@andreakay.com. Twitter: @AndreaKayCareer.