Days Off are Weird

Okay, so it's pretty well-known that I'm a workaholic. I don't like taking days off, and on days where I'm too sick to occupy my desk in the office, I'm at home... working. Yes, I'm one of those few who actually enjoys working and can work efficiently from home. Hells, even on weekends, I'm usually checking my work e-mails, taking calls from clients, and generally doing work-related stuff. Even when I was on vacation in Colorado to attend the wedding of my wife's niece, I was connected to work.

To be completely honest, it's pretty fucking exhausting.

So, when it was recommended that I take a personal day, I was confused! Of course, this personal day couldn't happen on any day that would require me to be in the office, so days where we process payroll, do presentations for clients or Corp, or have to do in-house interviews were right out. That means I can technically only take Wednesdays off. The problem there, however, is the fact that Wednesdays are planning days for my office. Typically, we set out our strategy for the end of the current week and the beginning of the next. My Team is pretty self-sufficient, though, and I can mostly trust that they'll get shit done... though there is still that paranoia.

I'm always afraid that something major will happen when I take time off [such as an on-the-job injury or a complete shutdown of our servers for example], and I'll be too far away from the office to do anything about it.

Now, nobody told me that I need to be this connected to work. I was never instructed to be always available. This is just a long-standing part of my work ethic. Hells, even when I was an hourly graveyard-shift worker at the Best Western in Fallon, NV, I was always available as support for the rest of the staff, even going so far as to work sixteen-hour shifts if the swing or morning shifts called off or to provide advice and on-call training if the other graveyard person needed my help [as a former night owl, there wasn't much else to do, after all]! I carried this ethic into every other job I've had, even when I entered my current company as an hourly worker!

With all that said, I took Wednesday of this week off. I took the day off so hard that I left my laptops and work cell in the office [and forgot to set my Out-of-Office message... whoops], set a gameplan for my Team the evening before, and spent the day crafting, watching things on YouTube, and doing self-care! And ya know what? It felt amazing! I didn't think once about work! I had no temptation to send a message to my assistant to ask for an update! There wasn't even a tinge of paranoia! Nada!

Of course, once I got back to the office on Thursday morning, I had to sift through the thousand or so e-mails waiting for me like so many stray cats waiting for their little saucer of milk. That took most of the day, but I wasn't hindered by my usual daily exhaustion. Everything ran smoothly [or as smooth as barnwood, but whatever].

So here's my point...

Take a day off every once in a while if you can. Re-center yourself and do some self-care, especially if you're a workaholic like me. Trust me - your sanity will thank you for it.

Workaholism is a growing problem in America, and before long, it could get as bad here as it has in Japan where it's such a problem that they have a word for it; Karoshi [過労死] or "overwork death." This is something that I realize my path has been leading toward. Part of my year of self-improvement, one of my goals is to avoid this. I constantly encourage my Team to avoid overworking as well. Like I tell them, "Don't be like me. Disconnect from work when you're off the clock. Spend time with your family and friends, and for Eris' sake, have a hot dog with no bun every once in a while."

This is going to be the second-most difficult challenge for me to face in '23. I have an amazing support base, though, and to them I will be eternally grateful!

So, thank you! I would bake each and every one of you a cookie, but I'm pretty shit in the kitchen.