Using up your Vacation Time
Hey, quit multitasking for a second. It’s a brand new year, which means it’s a brand new personal time off bank for those of us in corporate land. I put together some thoughts on how you can spend that bank of days for the year. No, January 2nd is not too early to be talking about vacations.
One caveat for these ideas — This article assumes that your company has a use it or lose it policy when it comes to vacation days. If they’re willing to pay you for that time, then do what feels right. For the rest of us suckers, we’ll just have to get creative.
Idea #1: Don’t work any more Mondays for the rest of the year. That’s it. That’s the whole idea.
Idea #2: Take off the first two hours of every day until your vacation time runs out. No more being late to work (at your house, 20 feet from your bedroom, in your fridge-adjacent workspace). Pro tip — don’t tell your significant other your plan. Sleeping in is even sweeter when you see their face as they’re heading off to work on that first day.
- Caveat — I wouldn’t recommend this option if you work on the West coast. It’s hard enough trying to schedule calls across every time zone when everyone is working normally.
Idea #3: Virtual school time = vacation time. You don’t have to be an employee and a professor at the same time. Let everyone know that from 10:00 to 2:00 you shall be called “Oh Wise One” and will only respond to that title. Join in on the virtual lesson calls, but sit just slightly out of frame to throw the teacher off. And since you will be in school, all lunches should be served on plastic trays and include a carton of milk.
- You may be tempted to use this time to learn the new math. Forget it. Just because schools decided to break math doesn’t mean we have to acknowledge it. Besides, Excel and calculators exist. When’s the last time any of you had to divide two numbers by hand?
Idea #4: Block off 2 days before any important upcoming meetings. Sure you could use that time to prepare, but this is vacation time. It ain’t procrastinating if it’s planned.
- Note — Managers will not approve of this plan unless you convince them to take the same days off. Be sure to put each other as your out of office contacts.
Idea #5: Micro vacations. Who says you have to take off large blocks of time? Spend 30 minutes on a micro vacation. Need a nap in the middle of the day? Tell your boss you’ll be out for an hour, turn on your out of office, and catch some Z’s. See an interesting bird outside of your window that needs further study? Boom, micro vacation.
- Your timesheet program almost certainly allows you to enter fractions of hours for your time off. Seems a shame not to take advantage of that option.
Idea #6: Do some horse trading — 1 hour of vacation for a cupcake is a good trade if you aren’t going to use all of your hours. Make sure you establish some quality guidelines for the cupcake first though. You don’t want to have buyer’s remorse if you don’t set the proper exchange rate. 1 hour for an ornate bakery cupcake, 10 minutes for Betty Crocker. Also suitable for slices of lasagna and fancy dips.
Idea #7: Threaten your boss with more vacation time every time they tick you off. You need a report by when? Are you kidding? That’s it, I’m adding a day to my vacation. Let’s see how you enjoy doing the monthly recap by yourself. You just turned your vacation into a weapon for them and a soothing balm for you. Like turning a tube of Chapstick into a shiv.
Idea #8: I suppose I should deliver on that “at least one good idea” promise from earlier. Stay classy — Ask to roll some days over. The powers that be may say yes, especially when you remind them that you couldn’t use all of your days last year either. Or better yet, ask to donate some days to the single parents, caregivers, or worn-out colleagues out there that could use a couple of days off. I’ve never heard of a company that made this a standard policy. Maybe your company can be the first in your industry and get some positive social media vibes (and do a nice thing too, I guess).
Regardless of the option you choose, please use your vacation time. You’ve earned the opportunity to not work for a bit and still get paid. There will always be more work than the time we have to complete that work. There will always be people who “only need a few minutes of your time since you’re out today”. Take the time off. Let your brain rest. Send your interns over to the neighbor’s house to play (the other neighbor you still get along with, not the other one after your intern punched their intern and it became a whole thing). Take a moment to just be still. It will be worth the time spent catching up on email later, I promise. And if you don’t think it’s worth it, sorry, I can’t hear you. I’m out of the office today.
-Philip
