The clock on the screen glows 11:09 PM. My eyes feel like they’ve been scraped with fine-grain sandpaper. There are 19 browser tabs open, each one a tiny monument to a decision that nine other people are silently waiting for me to make. One tab is a spreadsheet color-coding flight arrivals, car rental pickups, and ferry departure times. I briefly entertained the idea of adding a pivot table to cross-reference caffeine dependencies with time zone changes, then realized I was creating a document that could be used to declare me legally insane.

Another tab is the group chat. It’s been dormant for two hours, a deceptive calm. I spent 99 minutes of that peace researching restaurants that could accommodate a vegan, someone with a severe nut allergy, and a brother-in-law who has decided he only eats “paleo-adjacent” this month. I found a place. A real place. It had glowing reviews and a separate, non-judgmental menu. I posted the link with a sense of quiet triumph. A single, green bubble appears. It’s my sister. “Mark says that looks too… fancy.” Followed by, “Can we just find a place with good wings?”

There is no job title for this. There’s no salary, no benefits package, and certainly no paid time off. You are the Chief Memory Officer, the de facto CEO of a temporary, chaotic, and deeply emotional pop-up enterprise known as the Family Vacation. Everyone thinks the person in this role-and it’s almost always one person-is a control freak, a Type-A neurotic who genuinely enjoys orchestrating chaos. This is a comforting lie we tell ourselves to justify the exploitation.

The Chaos Sponge: Invisible Labor Defined

The truth is, the planner is not a control freak. They are a chaos sponge. They are the only thing standing between a week of cherished memories and a Lord of the Flies situation breaking out over who forgot to book the airport shuttle. This role is a crushing form of invisible labor, a second, unpaid, full-time job where your only key performance indicator is the complete absence of disaster. You receive no credit for the problems that don’t happen.

I used to believe I was just naturally good at this stuff. People would say, “You’re so organized! You make it look easy.” For years, I wore that compliment like a badge of honor. I’ve since realized it’s not a compliment; it’s a delegation. It’s the weaponization of competence. My friend Elena N. is a refugee resettlement advisor. Her actual, paying job involves navigating byzantine government agencies to find housing, healthcare, and schooling for families fleeing unimaginable trauma. She manages logistics that would make a military general weep. And yet, when it comes to her family trip, she’s the one stuck chasing down 9 Venmo payments for a beach house deposit because “she’s the one with the spreadsheets.” Her skills in crisis management have been domesticated into a tool for everyone else’s leisure.

The Weaponization of Competence

I’ve tried to abdicate the throne. I really have. Last year, I announced, “I’m not planning the summer trip. Someone else can take the lead.” The ensuing silence in the family group chat was so profound I thought my phone had died. Days turned into weeks. By April, with nothing booked, a low-grade panic began to set in. My uncle, a man who has never successfully operated a DVR, sent a link to a hotel in a city 49 miles away from the beach we’d discussed. That was the extent of the group’s effort. I cracked. I hate spreadsheets. I truly do. They represent a kind of rigid thinking that feels utterly alien to my nature. Yet, within an hour, I had a nine-column Google Sheet drafted. I criticize the process and then I become the process. It’s a ridiculous contradiction I live out every year.

It’s not about the logistics, not really. It’s about being the designated worrier. You’re the one who has to think about whether the rental car will fit all the luggage, whether the grocery store will be open when you land at 9:49 PM, and if there’s a pharmacy nearby that stocks a specific type of children’s allergy medicine. Each of these details is a tiny cognitive load, a single open tab in your mental browser. When you’re carrying 239 of them, your own mind has no processing power left for anticipation or excitement. You don’t get to look forward to the vacation; you can only look forward to it being over.

This is why mistakes feel so catastrophic. Two years ago, I booked our family a charming cabin in what was described as a “serene mountain town.” What I’d failed to cross-reference was the town’s annual event calendar. We arrived on day one of a nine-day regional motorcycle rally. The serenity was shattered by the guttural roar of 9,000 engines from dawn until dusk. The guilt I felt was absurdly disproportionate. It wasn’t just an error; it was a deep, personal failure. I had failed my performance review in the job I never wanted. My family was lovely about it, laughing it off. But I knew. It was a black mark on my invisible resume. The dream, of course, is a world where the only decision is the fun kind. Where the anxiety is lifted and the research is already done by someone whose entire purpose is to prevent motorcycle-rally-level mistakes. Imagine if the hardest part was just picking from a list of stunning, pre-vetted Punta Cana villas for rent because a professional had already confirmed the chef understands food allergies and the loudest noise is the ocean. That isn’t a vacation; it’s a rescue mission for the Chief Memory Officer.

There’s a strange psychological shift that happens when people go on vacation, particularly with money. A cousin who will drive 9 miles to save a few cents on gas will, without a moment’s hesitation, spend $39 on a novelty bucket-sized sticktail just for a photo. You’re not managing a budget; you’re managing nine different, highly volatile emotional economies. It’s a bit like a conversation I had at work today, a complete misunderstanding of priorities that ended with me… well, the point is that you cannot apply logic to it. You just have to build a bigger contingency fund and pray.

The Emotional and Logistical Firewall

That’s the core of it. The Chief Memory Officer isn’t just a planner. They are the family’s emotional and logistical firewall. They absorb the complexity so that others can experience simplicity. They field the 49 frantic texts about the WiFi password. They are the ones who know where the passports are. They are the ones who wake up at 3 AM wondering if they remembered to tell the rental company about needing a car seat.

Tonight, I finally found a new restaurant. It serves wings. And salads. And something that could, if you squint, be called paleo-adjacent. I posted it to the group. A single thumbs-up emoji appeared from my sister. Another from my dad. It’s 12:19 AM now. The spreadsheet is done. The restaurant is provisionally approved. My work is finished, for the moment. There is no applause. No bonus. Just the quiet hum of the laptop fan and the heavy, metallic taste of a job done, a job that will only be noticed if the next part of it goes wrong.