Weekly News Update

5 Comments

1. #3 on the Greedy Associates making a vacation happen article is a personal favorite of mine, specifically the part about adding a day or two to when you’ll actually be gone. I call it the “buffer day” and it has helped make my time off more relaxing. I hate the scramble pre and post-vacation, ruins the vacation relaxation!

   So, create a buffer! It doesn’t necessarily mean you need to take more days off – for example, set your out-of-office for the day before you leave through the day after you come back. You can also work from home on those buffer days. This will protect your wind-down and catch-up time. Also avoids people stopping by for things that are not urgent, avoids the dreaded 4:59 Friday-before-vacation email when your auto-responder is set to kick-in at 5, and makes you look good when responding to buffer day emails (“I’m headed out of town tomorrow but I’ll take care of that for you, or find you the right person, before I head out.”)

   This has made me happier and has received positive responses. Anyone else do this?

2. I found the NYT article so disturbing! I have recently been laid off from my job (as a lawyer), and one of the things I have considered is just staying at home with my son for a little while. My hesitancy has been “how do I get back on track?” or “can I even get back on track?” I guess this article answers that! Reading this, and the earlier comment about someone missing her brother’s wedding due to work, makes me wonder why finding balance between being a professional and having a life (not just family, but life!) outside of work is so elusive for many men and women alike.

   1. I felt like the NYT article was informative and sobering, but a little too smug in tone. Like “See? We told you! We said you’d need to go back to work someday!” I off-ramped for a little while – home completely for a year and a half, then went part-time when my kid was in preschool – and I went back to work at a full-time managerial job this year, making only about $4,000 less than I did in my last full-time job before quitting (and with performance bonuses and raises I’ll be back up to par within a year or two). I know several other women who have done the same. If you are going to stay home for awhile, just make sure A. you can afford it – really, without going into debt or sacrificing savings and B. have an “exit strategy” for staying home, the same way you would develop an exit strategy for a job you were ready to move on from. Maintaining professional contacts helps A LOT, as does maintaining some kind of contact with the professional community. One SAHM I am friends with got on the board of her discipline’s professional association and when she wanted to go back to work, she utilized those contacts and had a job within two months. I get a little weary with the media portraying working motherhood as an all-or-nothing proposition. If you have current skills, a good reputation, and some past accomplishments, you are still valuable in the workplace (although I admit, I think it is probably much harder for folks who stay out for a decade or longer to get back in). I went back to work for a woman-owned company with flex scheduling and a liberal attitude towards taking time off to be with family – they are allowing me to take sick time this week to cover the last few days of my kid’s summer vacation when we don’t have other childcare. If you make a plan, and then choose the right situation when you are ready to go back, it is doable. I am doing it, as are millions of other women, NYT.

3. I like that Inc has been included lately!

4. I’m glad you put the LifeHacker article up there. I came across them a few months ago and have been following them ever since.

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