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Send the Boss on That Needed Vacation

When it comes to hard work, Americans tend to overindulge. They work too many hours, they work too many days, and they work too many weeks a year compared with their counterparts in other parts of the world.

That certainly helps when you are measuring gross domestic product or company profits. It’s not so helpful when you are measuring fatigue or burnout.

It’s particularly bad if the boss sets the standard extremely high when it comes to a work schedule. It can be especially bad when the term vacation is not part of the boss’s vocabulary. I’ve worked for bosses who seemingly couldn’t or wouldn’t take the time to enjoy family or friends by slipping out of town occasionally to play.

The unfortunate part of a case in which the boss doesn’t take the allotted vacation time is that the people who surround that boss keep the same nonstop schedule. They become self-imposed victims to workaholic tendencies.

If you find that you have two or three weeks of vacation each year but aren’t able to take it, it may be a use-it-or-lose-it situation. You shouldn’t let that kind of loss happen. You deserve whatever time you are given for vacation whether it’s all at once or spread out over time. You deserve to take each day you are given.

If you find that the boss is the problem because you are expected to be there when the boss is there, it is probably time to have a conversation with the person for whom you work. If you have created the same expectation, you may want to have a conversation with yourself.

If this conversation yields no relief, you may want to find an ally or advocate for the vacation cause. What better person to have agree with you that a vacation is essential than the spouse, be it the boss’s or your own?

I had many a boss who worked long, hard days. Those days seemed endlessly strung together so that time off was rare. In the military it is part of the culture. When I retired from the army and neither my boss nor I was tied to operational or crisis situations, we could think differently about how we spent our time.

I even found that my boss’s wife had expectations of him that were different from the way he spent his time during his military days. I suggested to her that they needed time to enjoy family and friends in other parts of the country. She agreed. We began plotting. Before I knew it, they were enjoying the ability to get away. I found pleasure in that too. It was good for them; it was good for me.

What’s the value of taking a deserved or a much-needed vacation? To begin with, you’re apt to return to the workplace refreshed, even reenergized. You might have a whole new attitude toward what you do, how you do it, and why. The same thing applies to the boss.

Who are the beneficiaries? The staff, your colleagues, and the organization can all be rewarded. Most of all, your family may benefit.

Unfortunately, a lot of bosses are simply workaholics. They somehow believe the office can’t manage without them when in fact it might actually be of benefit for the staff to have a break from the boss.

If you are of the mind that the boss can’t survive without you, get over it. Life does not stop because you’re not there. In fact, a simple thing such as a break from each other could actually act as therapy or be medicinal.