Navigating Vacation Time and Work Demands
Amanda Mohan
Senior Engineering Manager ? Technical Leadership ? Proactive Problem Solving ? Precise Communication ? Breaking down siloes and energizing global product teams.
At the end of the year, I don't know about you, but I have vacation that I have to use or I lose it. I'm curious, do others feel the same way I do about vacation? Do you feel pressured that you have to use it and when you're actually using it, do you also feel the pressure and guilt that you still need to accomplish things at work??
Striking a Balance
I have a lot of vacation I need to utilize by the end of the year, and I'm trying to balance that, because I also have children still in school. I can't just leave and take a travel vacation. I have to stay home and help my husband with the kiddos. He also doesn't have all the vacation I do, so I can't just take off. I have responsibilities here, but if I'm just staying at home, should I be working? What should I be doing??
I know we need to disconnect from work, which is a mental and physical break that everybody needs. How much of a break do you take? Can you afford to completely break from work or are there projects that need a couple things here and there to keep going? Can you completely separate and jump back in smoothly when you return? Or do you need to hop into a meeting or two while you're on vacation? I mean, it's that hard balance, because you don't want to come back to a mountain of work, but you also don't want to leave and completely have to keep working throughout vacation as well.? We all need the breaks and we deserve the breaks.
领英推荐
You have to disconnect. We're in a time right now where I think in general people are always asking to do more with less. How do we get more efficient? How do we get more cost effective? And it's putting more pressure on the employees.
Planning Ahead
I'm curious if you're in this pickle as well, how are you going to improve for next year in planning ahead? We know we have all this time to take by the end of the year, are you going to take this time that you're off and plan next year's vacations? Try to make sure it's more scheduled and broken up throughout the year, or is it going to be the same old, same old where we will end up at the end of the year again and realize that we have all this time left?
I'd love to find out how you handle vacation time. What do you do, especially at the end of the year, if you're in my situation where you either have to use it or lose it, but you still have deadlines to deliver?
Global Senior Tech Specialist at ZF
2 个月Happy holidays
Engineer working at EPA to improve emissions control and fuel economy, including assessments of exhaust aftertreatment systems and fuel cell systems.
2 个月Two thoughts: 1. I have ground out my use it or lose it vacation by taking a day here or there in December, but it was a challenge keeping the rest of my week to 32 hours. 2. Especially as a consultant, if I scheduled my vacation far enough out it was the project’s problem to work around my leave. Otherwise it’s my problem to fit the leave in around my projects.