Taking on New Adventures

I recently read an article in The Economist about vacations and comparing the way Europeans vacation versus the way Americans vacation. It got me thinking: are we doing it wrong? Yes. Yes, we are. At least in my opinion.

I have worked for companies large and small and here’s one observation: When the manager/owner/person in charge values vacation time, then they allow and encourage their employees to do the same. When they don’t, then it’s much harder for the employees to take much-needed time off and completely check out.

One of my managers at CNN was very much into her vacation time. When she was off, she was off. Cell was off, email didn’t go to her phone, her out of office was on and she didn’t call to check in. She trusted those reporting to her to take care of things and in the event of a breaking news story, we didn’t hear from her. That was a good thing. It taught us we needed to make decisions and be able to hold our own without her there. It also let us know that she trusted us to do our jobs and do them well.

Another benefit of this approach was that all of us were allowed to take our vacations and do what we wanted without the pressure of checking in to work. If a colleague called while you were on vacation, it was urgent. And often just to get direction on something that was going on.

I didn’t realize how valuable that was until recently, when I tried to take a day off and was constantly returning texts and phone calls as I was trying to enjoy my mini-moon. At the same time, the hubby was doing the same thing. There was absolutely no respect from our bosses that we were on what should have been the most joyous time in our lives. Often, those bosses are the ones that don’t want to be bothered at all when they aren’t in the office but constantly email and micro manage from their vacation.

Were those bosses rude? Absolutely not. At least not to me. They were sincere in their apology for bothering me. My husband’s? Completely rude. In fact, he had to come back early from our only week long vacation to take care of something in the office because his big bosses refused to train anyone else to do his job.

That brings me to today. My husband and I have yet to take our full honeymoon and we’ve been married 3 years. We’ve not taken a full week off together to relax and recharge away from home, the cell phone and computers.

Do we need to do the same thing Europeans do? In order to do so, we have to completely change the culture here. But can we take lessons from them on how they vacation? Absolutely. I think that more encouragement across all sectors in respect to taking true vacations (a week or more off plus no calls or emails to check or return) is necessary. If the big companies do it, then maybe the small ones will follow.

I strongly believe that it will create a more healthy work environment for all. But what do you think?

Image is from my last vacation where I was able to completely turn the phone off… in May 2013