Not quite....but nearly!
Spread-eagled by a pool in rural south-west France it’s easy to not want to have internet access. After all, our lives seem to be ruled by email and the need for immediate-response communication.
Finding myself, more and more, surfing the web while watching TV, picking up my phone just to have a fiddle, and an increasing use of Twitter (follow me at http://twitter.com/melcarson), I was determined to get through a week on holiday with the family without checking mail or the internet.
I failed.......but I learned some things in the process:
- No one died while I was away!
- There were no emergencies, no desperate “we need you” calls from the office and the building is still standing when I got back this morning!
- Over half the emails I got we’re deletable as soon as I read them today.....so why did I worry about how many I’d come back to?
- It’s ok to use your phone to check the cricket score....as long as we’re doing well
- It’s ok to check your phone to check your return flight is leaving on time
- It’s not ok to shut yourself in the toilet and checkout friends statuses on Facebook when you still have 12 chapters of Tom Clancy to get through
- It’s not ok to leave your phone in direct sunlight if you don’t want complex surgery to un-fuse it from your smoking ear
I once went on holiday with a mate who insisted on checking his email AND REPLYING twice a day during a two week trip. He had confidence issues that some people were after his job and that he couldn’t trust his staff to do their jobs either. It was pretty sad because it was hardly a holiday for him. It just meant he was as stressed as he ever was, just on the other side of the world and wearing a pair of speedos!
We owe it to ourselves to take time out and enjoy holidays for what they are, a time to relax, recharge the batteries and spend time with family and loved ones.
Employers have to make sure they create the right work ethic and work/life balance culture to ensure we can go on holiday and not have to worry.
Otherwise we’ll never be as productive or efficient as we could be when we come back...
