Decompression

By Ed Avella
Campus Director & Dean of IT Programs

In weeks past I’ve talked about trying to stay disconnected; to not affording too much access to our personal time so we don’t burn out.

If you are anything like me, you aren’t the greatest at doing that. As an admitted technology junkie, I have created a living environment that takes almost as much work to disconnect and shut down as it does to just go ahead and answer an email at 5 am on a Sunday.

This past week, my propensity to research and read and think and write and share and listen and wonder has made me sick. Physically sick. And of course, I was working amidst coughing fits and hot tea remedies.

Sadly, many people around me suffer the same consequence for just trying to make sure things get done, because at some point we decide our health and well-being is secondary to answering just one more question or solving just one more problem.

I’m also willing to bet that the people around you are suffering the same thing.

So here’s a question – do you wait to the absolute last minute to use your PTO, only to find that you’re working through it anyway?

Here’s a bigger one: What process do you have in place to assist your employees to use their time off before they are up against the deadline to “use it or lose it?” Is this really the most effective way to manage our vacation benefits? I doubt I have to go far on a limb to speculate that it really isn’t much of a vacation from anything, since those PTO deadlines seem to coincide with end of year goals and reporting!