Paulette Goes on Vacation

Paulette can hardly wait. It’s been six months since she had more than a day off.

This will be a whole week. Sort of. 

Back in the planning phase, she tried to get the Steering Committee to mandate

breaks for the whole team, all at once. That didn’t fly. The trajectory for the release

is ten months, which in retrospect is way too long, and the Committee thought it

best to just push through and try to support key people like her to get away when

possible. The last time she tried to go on vacation she thought she was so smart,

booking it right after the push to finish the user stories. But everything got delayed

and things were still crazy intense and so she put it off. It’s what you have to do.

Nobody on the leadership team should be gone during peak times.

Maybe she’s miscalculated again, but, really, there will never be such a thing as a

truly off-peak moment for the next while. And the CEO called her up and told her to

please take the time, despite the circumstances. It felt great to be supported like

that. They agreed that she would be looped into the pivotal meeting to finalize the

contract with the new vendor. It would be mid-week, on the day that she and the

kids had been planning to drive into the village and shop, leaving her partner to

have a day all to himself. Oh well. At least it’s clear that she doesn’t need to do any

of the prep for the meeting, and that her colleague Erik will write up the post-

meeting report and finalize the documentation that has to go to Legal. She just has

to show up for the meeting. Maybe it will be done by early afternoon and there will

still be time to hit the beach.

The last two “pen’s down” days she had off were spent with dentists, doctors,

teachers, and hair stylists. She’s so grateful that this time her partner has been

going flat out to deal with all the kid and household infrastructure issues so that she

can have a true vacation. And she’s grateful for the protocols developed by the

organization to support that intent. To make sure there is coverage for her. To

assume and expect that she will not check email while she is away. To have criteria

for what constitutes a real emergency and how she would be contacted if that were

to happen. To create a buffer before the start of the vacation so that she can

properly orient the people who will make decisions in her absence. To create a

buffer when she arrives back at work, so that she has time to orient herself to all

that has happened in her absence, before she jumps back into all the meetings.

Thank goodness for these structures, because she’s pretty sure that without them

she’d just feel too responsible to allow herself to relax and disconnect. 

The truth is that she is nervous to go on vacation. There are so many threads to

hold onto, and at the best of time she struggles. Will it all blow up if she steps

away? Can she trust her colleagues to fill the gap? Can she trust herself to not

spend the whole vacation being anxious, sneaking peaks at her phone to see

what’s going on. She’s aware of how fast she’s been going. Will she remember how

to slow down? 

As it turns out, Paulette remembered how to go slow. She had a great vacation.

Which she told the team about during the first meeting upon her return. As per

protocol, she was on the agenda to give highlights of her vacation, and to provide

any insights that would improve the organization’s support for people taking

vacation in the future. So, what were the highlights? Getting up early before the

girls and doing yoga leisurely. Walking for hours along the beach, looking for shells

with her family. Swimming, snorkeling, diving. Reading a long and wonderfully

detailed piece of historical fiction set in Korea. Of course she left out some of the

highlights, being nobody’s business but her own. About reconnecting with her

partner. And drinking too much on the final night, dancing into the wee hours. As for

the business part of her report, she recounted being successful in not checking

emails while she away, which was accurate except for just before she got on the

plane for the trip home. The team were enthusiastic, with lots of kudos for her

discipline. She thanked everyone for going ahead and making decisions in her

absence, not just deferring things for her to deal with on her return. She mentioned

that the one emergency text she received about the sudden demand from the

solution integrator for an accelerated turn-around could really have been sorted

without her input. All the necessary information was available, so what would have

made it possible to proceed? A useful discussion ensued.

It was good to be back! The greatest thing about the vacation was how revitalized

she now felt. Paulette was ready to bear down and bring the project home.