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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm sympathetic to the scheduling issues. My vacation is determined by all sorts of factors like school breaks and the things I'm going to see, plus if I bent around every busy period at work I'd never get to go. Similarly, big work events happen when they happen and I can't plan them around every other due date and deliverable.

I don't complain about being too busy, but I will tell you I'm too busy for specific low priority things. Sometimes people working on those low priority things get mad about it. [/quote]

I’m not talking about the usual holidays. Everyone realizes how the calendar and schools work.

I’m talking about people who schedule big trips when they’ll be completely offline in the weeks before a huge deadline or all hands on deck event.

Examples:

-two week safari the week before your big federal grant proposal is due.

-silent retreat off the grid the week before your annual gala.

-Even if you’re accessible in terms of location/connectivity, making a big deal about how you don’t want anyone to contact you until you are officially back online…48 hours before the team presents its new product to the decision makers…and you are running point or second chair.

In my neck of the woods, these are highly credentialed women with big jobs.

The men who drop balls and disappoint are quickly labeled as slackers and never make it into big roles. [/quote]

I don't see any difference in your examples. I chose the safari dates are because that's when my spouse could go or when the water is high or that's the week my kids aren't in summer camp. Doesn't matter. The point here is not to plan the trip around work, the point is to delegate. Perhaps you're seeing insufficient delegation and poor management oversight.

Specifically, it's one of these three:
1. Planning the gala is not my job: I approve the location, guest list, etc., I write my remarks, and I show up. I'm certainly not stuffing tote bags the week before, as in an earlier example: other people do that.
2. If planning the gala *is* my job, then I'm either not the person to plan this year's gala, or I need to get those details worked out early and then designate somebody to cover the two weeks I'm out. If I am too junior to actually tag somebody to help me, I ask my supervisor to delegate instead. My supervisor should be thinking about this when approving my safari vacation time.
3. If the organization has no one who can cover a two-week absence of any individual, that is a staffing problem and time to look for a new job someplace that is better run. [/quote]

Yes and no.

If you have an annual event at the same time each year and you are part of the core team with responsibilities, you have no business going on vacation and going dark during crunch time. That’s not fair to your team.

And it’s particularly annoying when you return and act flustered/stressed out because of everything that still remains to be done in the final days leading up to the event.

Smart people go on vacation after the gala, not during crunch time. [/quote]

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