The first August I moved to London in 2017, I didn’t take any vacation days. I’d only relocated a few months before, and I was managing a team for the first time. I felt like I hadn’t done enough to earn the time off.
But instead of having a productive month, I spent most days in the office alone. Even though I’d been warned, I didn’t fully understand that most Europeans don’t work at all in August. With all of my team laying on beaches on Mediterranean islands, I ended up feeling so bored that I wondered if I should even be in the role at all. Low and behold, when my team came back after the late bank holiday, the work picked up and my boredom evaporated. But while everyone else was refreshed and ready to get stuck in as the weather turned cooler, I was left wondering why I hadn’t taken advantage of the downtime when I could.
In my jobs in the U.S., I had maximum 15 days of holiday time. In the U.K, I have 26 days off — and it is a government mandate that all workers are entitled to 20 days of holiday and 8 bank holidays. Yet it’s not only that those two extra weeks make a quantifiable difference in how one rations one’s time off, but the culture around holiday time, itself, that’s different.
The European leaders who were my role models took their time off without explanation or fanfare. There were weeks-long skiing holidays in winter, at least two weeks off in August, and long weekends here and there. I never had a single person on our EMEA team even hint that holiday was anything but a godsend. It took a few years, but I finally stopped debating my time off out loud — looking for external validation that people didn’t think I was slacking. Now my conversations around PTO look like booking the time in Workday, communicating with my boss, and getting on with it.
Yet productivity guilt is difficult to unlearn completely. I can’t say for sure exactly where this comes from, but somewhere along the way, the message I internalised was that time off translates to laziness and that guilt about taking vacation is necessary to justify it.
I can think of several instances where the “Are you working hard enough?” around holiday has been explicitly enforced by my American colleagues. Even as a U.K. employee, my direct boss was always the global head based in the U.S. I remember a time when I let my direct boss know that I was going to be adding a few extra days of PTO to spend time with my parents while I was over in the States for the company’s sales kick off. The message I received back simply said, “Didn’t you just take two weeks off for Christmas?”
I hadn’t. But that wasn’t the point. My guilt was immediately triggered, and even though I had the days accrued in the system, I still wondered if it was worth the extra hassle. In the end, I did choose to take the extra time with my family — and just three weeks later the world went into lockdown. I didn’t see my parents for six months. I was very grateful for the decision I’d made.
It’s not just our bosses who set the culture around time away. When I was twenty-three and working in Boston, I spent a long weekend away with my Mom. I was already at quota for the quarter, and feeling happy about my prospects for getting promoted soon. My three days of holiday time were spent doing yoga, laying on the beach, reading books, eating seafood, and having life chats with my Mom.
When I returned to the office, a senior colleague melodramatically sighed, “Jeez, I’d love to take a vacation. I’m just too busy.” I instantly felt deflated. Even if I knew he was coming from his own place of insecurity with his relationship to work, I was frustrated that my time away could be seen in such a negative light.
Ultimately, no one can make you feel any type of way without your permission. When I was less experienced and before Covid-19 made holidays an impossibility, I was far more easily influenced by other people’s judgements. No matter where we live or how many days of paid leave we have, we all deserve our time in the sun — away from screens and away from our work selves.
Most of the UK, Southern Europe, and DACH take the month of August off. The Nordic’s take the entire month of July off. Can you imagine how much more relaxed Americans would be if everyone took a few weeks off at the same time? No guilt for the meetings we’re missing. No last minute fire drills pulling us away from precious personal time. No mountain of emails to return to.
I love working hard. I enjoy my career in technology sales. I love making money. But equally, I love love love my time off. I won’t be leaving a single PTO day unused for the rest of my life.
Instead of a recipe this week, I want to share my latest drinks obsession. Last weekend, we did a tour of the Bombay Sapphire distillery in Hampshire. It was a last minute booking so we started our tour at 10:20 AM with a crisp Gin & Tonic — and an introduction to my favourite new gin, Bombay Sapphire Citron Presse. If you like limoncello (or the limoncello spritz trend that’s going around TikTok) this is the gin for you.
If you’re ever in Hampshire, the Bombay Sapphire distillery is definitely worth a visit. Built in a 1700s paper mill, every sip of the 65 million litres of Bombay Sapphire produced each year is distilled here in only four copper stills that run 24/7. They even use two of the original stills, built in the 1830s. If you want to feel better about the gin you’re drinking, the distillery also runs on 100% renewable electricity.
I hardly ever drank gin before I moved to England, but now a citrusy gin & tonic is my first choice.
How to Change (US Bookshop.org // UK Bookshop.org)
Yes, forming stable routines is key to habit formation. But if we want to form the “stickiest” possible habits, we also need to learn how to roll with the punches, so we can be flexible when life throws us a curve ball. Too much rigidity is the enemy of good habits.
I started reading this book on January 2nd of 2022 and it turned out to be exactly what I’d hoped for — the perfect ‘New Years Resolution’ book. In fact in the first chapter, behavioural scientist Katy Milkman even shows that “Fresh Starts” — holidays like New Years Day or big life milestones — are an ideal time to start pursuing change.
Not just another self-help book, How to Change is full of deeply researched, science-backed takeaways on how to improve our habits. The study that surprised me the most was one they ran about gym attendance. They paid two groups of Google employees to go the gym consistently for forty weeks. One group were paid to go to the gym several days a week at the exact same time, and another group were paid to go to the gym the same amount of days a week — but they were able to change the time of day.
With so much said about the importance of building a consistent routine, Milkman was surprised by the study’s findings. They found that both groups were better off after the study — but that the group which had flexibility around what time they attended the gym actually built a “stickier” habit. These people were more likely to still fit in a workout even if their schedule changed unexpectedly, while the people who were more rigid in their timings tended to skip the gym entirely if they missed their original plan.
I love this research because I’ve always personally struggled to follow rigid habits, like writing at the same time every day or working out at the same time week in week out. I always felt like there was something wrong with me for not being able to stick with it. But I find that I’m better at applying my habits when I fit them in around my life — as opposed to berating myself for each day not being a perfect carbon copy of the one before it.
In the spirit of this newsletter, I will be staring out to sea all weekend sipping a cold drink. I hope your weekend is equally lovely!
Cheers to you!
Kelley
AMEN on the time off. You'll always remember the time you spend with your people away from work. Life's too short. Now if we could only change the entire US corporate culture to agree...
Love this week's blog topic and message, Kelley- 37 years in to my career and I still needed this reminder. Also love your weekly book recommendations- your reviews are GREAT. Am so enjoying this fun and thoughtful weekly addition to my inbox! 😊
Liza B