Being unable to keep up with email while on vacation may not be relaxing for some
By Brian Kreissl
I just returned from a vacation in Florida. It was a fun and relaxing break from my usual routine filled with swimming, roller coaster rides, mini golf with my daughter, shopping, dining and sampling craft beer. My only disappointment was the fact that the weather was quite wet and even a little chilly (by Florida standards) for the first few days.
In many ways, it was just what my family and some friends we travelled with needed in the way of a break. It felt like our vacation kind of kickstarted the summer for us – particularly since we returned to such balmy weather here in the Toronto area.
The fear of missing out
Nevertheless, there was always that nagging feeling I was missing something important back at the office. I am often asked to weigh in on issues at work and there are some questions no one else is able to answer. It felt like I had a million projects on the go before I left, and I had a sneaky suspicion there would be multiple fires to put out on my return to the office.
I’m sure others have experienced this, but I have noticed there is sometimes a tendency to panic when someone isn’t in the office to answer an important (or sometimes not so important) question. A cast of thousands invariably gets copied on the email thread and people tend to make mountains out of molehills when the main decision-maker isn’t available. This isn’t a criticism of my employer and colleagues specifically, but is rather an observation about human nature and organizations in general.
My feelings were compounded because I can no longer access company email on external devices due to tighter security restrictions, and I didn’t feel I could take my company smartphone with me on vacation (roaming in the U.S. would have been a different story if I was actually there on business). I couldn’t even log into my personal email or Facebook using a hotel computer due to enhanced security provisions making it difficult to access online accounts using an unfamiliar device in an unfamiliar location.
Because most people tend to travel with their phones today (even overseas in many cases, which must cost a fortune), I guess most email providers and social media outlets assume few people actually log in these days using hotel computers or Internet cafés. In many ways, this enhanced security is a good thing as it helps avoid being hacked, yet it can be difficult for people like me who only have a work phone (I gave up my personal phone after I realized I was hardly using it) and are unable to access work email using other devices.
Vacation should be a break from work
There was also the fact that my wife (and a couple of other people) chastised me for even thinking I should be logging into my work email while on vacation. While I understand the point that vacation should be about relaxing, unwinding and not thinking about work, I personally feel more of a sense of work-life balance if I am able to monitor my email for 30 minutes or so in the early morning and respond quickly to important messages so the issues don’t get blown out of proportion.
Who wants to return to a mess after a vacation? I also think remaining plugged in at a very low level during a vacation can actually help alleviate stress and fear of the unknown when one returns to the office after an extended absence. For those reasons, I take my work phone with me on vacations within Canada, but foreign destinations are a different story.
In this case, I didn’t have too much of a mess to return to after my vacation, although there were over 200 new emails to go through and a couple of new issues and challenges to deal with. Still, my personal preference would have been to be able to keep apprised of at least some of what was going on back at the office while I was gone.
Nevertheless, technology can be a major intrusion with respect to work-life balance. For that reason, several jurisdictions have introduced legislation giving employees the right to disconnect after hours. I am going to discuss this issue in greater detail next week.
