A teammate recently fell sick while on vacation. When he returned to work, another teammate reminded him that he could have his vacation days converted to sick days. In his words: "Vacation was meant to recharge you so that you can be productive when you return". This made me reflect on how the way I view vacations has changed over the years.
I used to equate time off with going on vacations, hopefully not long ones. What if someone needed me? What if something broke that only I can fix? I was the person who stayed online during vacations hoping the green dot on Slack reflected my dedication to my work. Vacations just felt like work days, but by the beach. At some point, I started feeling the urge to call in sick instead of telling others that I want a day off to just recharge.
Over time, I've been fortunate to work with people who've changed how I view vacations. They instilled in me that my time off was sacred and that I shouldn't treat it as a band-aid for burnout. The work that I was anxious about? Turns out it's not my responsibility alone. I should be able to lean on my team to keep things working in my absence. And if I couldn't rely on my team, then there are larger issues to address here.
Surprisingly(to me), time off doesn't need to be tied to vacations either. Turns out it's okay to take days off to just do nothing; it's part of recharging. The Dutch even have a word for it - niksen.
So back in 2022, on a vacation abroad, I finally decided to disconnect. Things did break. I was tagged on a bunch of threads, but the teams soon realized that I was on vacation and figured out how to fix the issue themselves. Since then, I have been completely offline during any time off. It's been over 6 years, and things have always been fine.