\n It\u2019s even worse in IT. Many IT professionals have specialized knowledge and skills. Often, especially at small companies, they might be the only DBA or systems administrator with no one available to fill in while they are out. Big projects, like mergers or ERP implementations, add extra work while the day to day tasks still need to be completed. They find themselves working long days and weekends just to keep up.\n<\/p>\n
\n In some cases, workers can cash in unused time at the end of the year. When management of a company I used to work for realized that salaried employees took advantage of that quite often, they took the benefit away. Holiday time became \u201cuse it or lose it\u201d even though managers often refused to approve any time off for months during big projects. It\u2019s not like the IT folks didn\u2019t want to take time off; it was just very difficult to do.\n<\/p>\n
\n Workers, especially in IT, need to take advantage of time away from the job to spend with family, to travel, and to enjoy life. Employers should make sure that their employees know that they are expected to take time off, and they won\u2019t be penalized for doing so. A company culture that rewards employees for not taking their time off benefits will also foster burn out and increased turnover.\n<\/p>\n
\n I will forget about my responsibilities while I\u2019m gone as I snorkel with manta rays and create memories with my family. Those responsibilities will be right where I left them when I get back.\n<\/p>\n
\n
Commentary Competition<\/h4>\n
Enjoyed the topic? Have a relevant anecdote? Disagree with the author? Leave your two cents on this post in the comments below, and our favourite response will win a $50 Amazon gift card. The competition closes two weeks from the date of publication, and the winner will be announced in the next Simple Talk newsletter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I write this, my mind is focused on my big holiday trip, just two days away. It\u2019s a trip I\u2019ve been planning for five years, and it includes our children, their spouses, and our grandchildren \u2013 eleven people in all. I\u2019m still debating on whether to take a laptop along, but I\u2019m leaning towards……<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47125],"tags":[],"coauthors":[11292],"class_list":["post-79362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorials"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79362"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79472,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79362\/revisions\/79472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79362"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=79362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}