HR BESTIES - Quiet Vacationing

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

Today’s agenda:  Leigh's bad interview Cringe corporate speak: under the hood Hot topic: Quiet Vacationing What does it mean? Policies Leaders can be flexible Questions/Comments  Your To-Do List: Grab merch, submit Questions & Comments, and make sure that you’re the first to know about our In-Person Meetings (events!) at https://www.hrbesties.com. Follow your Besties across the socials and check out our resumes here: https://www.hrbesties.com/about.  We look forward to seeing you in our next meeting - don’t worry, we’ll have a hard stop! Yours in Business + Bullsh*t,  Leigh, Jamie & Ashley Follow Bestie Leigh! https://www.tiktok.com/@hrmanifesto https://www.instagram.com/hrmanifesto https://www.hrmanifesto.com Follow Bestie Ashley! https://www.tiktok.com/@managermethod  https://www.instagram.com/managermethod https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyherd/ https://managermethod.com Follow Bestie Jamie! https://www.millennialmisery.com/ Humorous Resources: Instagram • YouTube • Threads • Facebook • X Millennial Misery: Instagram • Threads • Facebook • X Horrendous HR: Instagram • Threads • Facebook Tune in to “HR Besties,” a business, work and management podcast hosted by Leigh Elena Henderson (HRManifesto), Ashley Herd (ManagerMethod) and Jamie Jackson (Humorous_Resources), where we navigate the labyrinth of corporate culture, from cringe corporate speak to toxic leadership. Whether you’re in Human Resources or not, corporate or small business, we offer sneak peeks into surviving work, hiring strategies, and making the employee experience better for all. Tune in for real talk on employee engagement, green flags in the workplace, and how to turn red flags into real change. Don't miss our chats about leadership, career coaching, and takes from work travel and watercooler gossip. Get new episodes every Wednesday and Friday, follow us on socials for the latest updates, and join us at our virtual happy hours to share your HR stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Have you ever had a bad interview? That was kind of rhetorical. Of course. Yes. Was that actually, that was rhetorical. Not a comment, but a quick question. Have you ever had a bad interview? Oh my gosh. Well, I certainly have. I've had a lot, actually. I've shared a number of them on the socials, but one really sticks out for me and you all will appreciate this. So Guy phone screens me. We had already exchanged a couple emails and he you know we have the phone

screen and it is for a senior vice president of HR position. And I of course ask some of my usual questions, why isn't this a CHRO position? And, you know, like is this the highest position of HR? It's a small, it's like a startup, it's small, like 60 people or something. And I remember he said, well, it was like a startup is small, like 60 people or something. And I remember he said, Well, it was a CHRO position. And I said, Oh, so you downgraded it. And he's like,

Well, I wouldn't call it a downgrade, right? I mean, we totally respect, you know, HR and the people function, you know, just a bunch of lip service PS. And I said, well, then why did you downgrade the position? You know, who are the peers? Are they also SVPs? No, they all have C-suite titles. Of course they do. Well, why did you downgrade it? Well, things with the current CHRO aren't going so well.

And so, you know, we're doing a secret head hunting thing and whatever. And okay, so the future of your function gets penalized because you had one bad experience with the CHRO, right? Oh, okay. And so then of course, that's like red flags for me. And my next question, I'm not kidding. My next question was, well, who does this position report to? Guess.

The CHRO? No. The COO? CFO? CFO. Okay, okay. The head of finance, of course. Yes.

And I said, because I was already kind of snarky, you know what I mean? I just wasn't in the mood and this guy was having just a little, you know, he's kind of doing this manipulative kind of self, you know, you know, you can tell, you know, you don't hit it off with somebody. It does, you already know it's not going to be a thing. And I said, well, I thought that you just said that you all respect HR and your people. And he was like, well, we do. And I was like, well, then why

did you downgrade the position, number one, from CHRO to SVP, the only SVP, not even on the front line, I guess. And now I understand it, it reports to the CFO. And he's like, no, we do. How dare you? He started yelling at me. I've never had a recruiter literally yell at me. He was like, how dare you say we don't respect people in this? And I was like, well, all behaviors indicate the exact opposite. They do. Why would you have this position, the head of people basically, reporting in to somebody who doesn't know shit about people. Right? I mean, come on, it's the CFO. They have their expertise.

We have ours. I mean, I have multiple grad degrees. What the fuck? This is all I've ever done. Right? I mean, it's like I'm an actual person, a professional. You know, what are you doing? He was livid.

I hung up on him. Good for you. I hope he listens to the podcast and I hope he makes a connection because it was just a phone call. He didn't see me. That was embarrassing for him. The secondhand embarrassment was crazy. And I wasn't even, I promise, like, because sometimes I can be like rudely direct or just like snarky on purpose. It's true. Okay. But I wasn't even doing that. I was like probing for understanding because this is a phone screen and I need to know this information

to determine whether I want to entertain this position whatsoever. Livid. To where he was offended, I was like, dude, you're a contract recruiter. Like... Yeah, like pipe down, Jaji. Yeah, like chill. You know what I mean? Get a grip right there. Get a grip. But what I would say is, is if you are struggling in your organization, look at the alignment structure, right? Look at the hierarchies, look at the titles, look at, you know, all these signals and signs for how the organization respects or doesn't respect people, because it's indicative in the HR team.

Who are they hiring in the HR team? Are they certified? Do they have degrees? Do they have backgrounds? Do they have experience? What are their titles? Are they completely off from the other titles like of ops or the other alignments within the other functions?

Right? I mean, it's going to be very telling and facts. You get what you pay for. Yeah. That I wouldn't consider it a downgrade. It's not a downgrade. I mean, I guarantee you when the CEO was talking about it, they're like, this isn't working out.

We're going to downgrade this, have a report to the CFO. I mean, it's like cringe corporate speak if you don't want to call it a downgrade. But that's exactly what people would call it on an HR Facebook group or group message in any other function where you change the title so it's different. That is downgrading, and I'm sure from a pay perspective as well. Did they give a pay range? Was it a crazy pay range? Did you get to that point?

No, and it was out of Colorado, but it was pre-law. You know what I mean? It was like the year before or something. It was just a few years ago. But if you see that the CEO doesn't want to have, doesn't demand, doesn't require being close to their people later, they only give a shit about money. They're completely financially focused. And hey, it's a startup. I get that. You know what I mean? They don't even know if they're going to survive. They probably didn't, if I had you know. So that's what they're focused on. They can't bother with the people aspect, but it's people that make the magic in the business. And so you want a CEO that's like, they almost have their CHRO or head of HR, whatever they want to call it, as long as it aligns with their peers, like right there with them, lock arm.

Because we always joke, right, in HR, you got HR on this shoulder, and you got finance on the other shoulder, and there should be a good balance, right? You want both opinions, and you need to weigh that, you know, this way, if you're a good business leader. So huge red flags, oh my gosh. And I know it's not a unique experience.

Well, and I wonder, you know, if that CHRO is a listener of us, I would love to hear her or his side of the story because I bet they just crashed, like clashed with the CEO or maybe the CFO. Probably. They probably, they probably would agree it didn't work out. We have some other reasons for that. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Also highly recommend asking how many CHROs has this CEO gone through in the last five years? Oh, about 15.

Oh, okay. Well, I see this is not a fit for me. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because it takes a lot of bravery to be the head of HR, to be an HR in general, right? And so when you see, if you're not an HR, if you see things don't go the way you wish they were going, 95% of the time, I swear, you got an HR team fighting their asses off behind the scenes but losing every damn day. I swear, I promise on everything because I've been that person. I've been fired because of that because I've been just too pro-employee because that's like being pro myself. Hello, Doug. I want bonuses too. I want more time off and better benefits too. Come on, people,

think about it. HR obviously gets a very bad rap, but we are people advocates. And not only are we advocating for the employees, but we're also advocating for ourselves because we too are employees. People forget that. Oh, gosh. Well, shall we jump in ladies? I know that we have a hard stop. Well, Jamie does. It's always Jamie. We have a full agenda today, as always. We are going to start with some cringe corporate speak, right? And Jamie is going to bring that to us today. And then we are going to pivot and shift and twirl to our meeting hot topic, which is all about quiet vacationing. Gosh, what a hot topic, right? Oh gosh, this is in the news. But we're going to talk about what the hell it is and then dive into maybe some PTO best practices in general and just our advice, of course, in two cents.

And then as always, we will shift to some questions and comments at the end. Jamie, Cringe Corporate Speak, what do you got for us today? Yeah. So today I'm bringing to you Under the Hood. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I've always heard it in the sense that we're going to take a deep dive using another cringy corporate. Defining with cringy corporate.

Love it. A lot of times, and I get what it means. It's like you're peeking under the hood of a car, right? We're checking the oil or checking the fluids. I understand. But it's, it's, you could definitely use it out of context. Yeah. I feel like someone's lifting up my skirt. Yeah. Yeah. Or like my shirt, like under my head. Honk honk. Well, and I don't know how cars work. I think it's like, I think of cars, like I think of

the internet, TV, all that. It's all magic. Cell phones, it's all magic. It's all magic. I've had to be in positions where I had to do like legal contracts around technical things like that. I have them draw me a picture on the whiteboard. So it doesn't, you know, the looking under the hood won't do it. It'll just make me more confused. And so I think what but what would we say instead of under the hood? What do we recommend? What do you like deep dive? Are you an Olympic diver that the Olympics Olympics coming up?

Is that more your speed? I don't know. I don't think deep dive. I think like let's just take a closer look. Let's analyze it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, to your point, Ashley, you got like my wheels turning here. I bet that is, and we haven't looked at the origin. Ashley's going to chat GPT. I just saw her eyes dart to her monitor here, but I bet it's from like the Mad Men era. And it's very masculine. Like to your point, I don't know how the fuck a car works. Okay. I get in there with my remote key and I press a button.

Like that's the extent, you know what I mean? So I'm pretty worthless with checking under a hood. So if that's what we're doing as a group in a team meeting, I'm not going to understand any of those mechanics. I'm not going to understand any of those mechanics. I'm not going to be able to contribute or help. Like if you want to take it like literal like that, you know what I mean? Like I could see how that's divisive in a way or like it's probably got these sexist origins, you know, because it's stereotypical. Yeah, it comes from it.

So I see it. I don't see a date on this, but basically it's like binding when you're buying a used car in particular to not just go by what the salesperson says, but to examine it a bit. And so again, examine is a word for it, and probably a better word than just that. I just flashed the ladies. Yes, thank you.

I always appreciate that. I let them take a sneak peek under my hood. Oh gosh, it's always nice to see how things are running. No more fluids in these bad boys. So this is so what Jamie's given an excellent example of is what where people's minds will go when you use this type of cringe corporate speak. So speaking very specifically in ways that can't make the mind wander is always recommended by the HR Vestis.

Yeah, and I feel like 80% of cringe-corporate speak is sexual. Oh, yeah. Or can be construed. Or can be. Yeah, you know what I mean? But of course, anything can be when you try hard enough. That is what she said. That's what she said.

Oh, my gosh. Woo. All right. Well, that is what she said. That's what she said. Oh my gosh. All right. Well, that is cringy. Shall we shift to the hot topic? I think we should. The lawyers like, yes, please. I think we're legally required. Let's look under the hood of this hot topic there. All about quiet vacationing. Somebody tell me, what the hell is it? What's quiet vacationing? I can speak to how it's defined, having recently had to give an interview on this. So overall, quiet vacationing is this idea that people, they're going to take some time off, they're going to work somewhere else in particular, but they don't want to tell

their boss. And part of the reason is this is in particular, and this is a bit of a uniquely American concept because in most of the rest of the world, you need some time off, you take the time off it is just an expected, it's an expected process. Yeah, it's not even a request as much as just a it's there or a custom. But in the US in particular, people tend to have pretty low balances. People don't have that much. And so you have these choices,

especially if you have things like if your PTO is gonna cover sickness. So instead of taking actual time off, people are like, I'm just gonna work remotely, but not tell my boss about it. Because also that conversation, depending on your boss, can be, well, they're gonna say no, it's gonna become this whole thing.

They're gonna have to ask for permission. And so people just do it and try to hide it as much as possible. So blurring their background, not sharing, not putting anything on social. And so this idea that you are working the bare minimum to not get fired or caught, but then trying to maximize your free time. Have you all quiet vacation? I'm definitely guilty of it. I mean, you know, I think with the rise of remote work

since the pandemic, things are just different, right? So if I'm working somewhere and I have seven PTO days, which that has happened to me before, and I'm gonna go on a weekend trip and I don't wanna take that Friday off, but I know that I can use my hotspot in the car while we're driving up there and I can still be present. I just might not physically be at my desk. Yeah, I'm going to do that. And I have before.

Yeah, same. Example I gave is kind of same thing. It was like a half day before a holiday and we were expected to be in the office, but it was like Thanksgiving. And so the traffic was going to be crazy. And when I knew then my boss wasn't going to be there, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna have exactly have my computer up, have my hotspot going. And so I'm sitting there like stressed, trying to cover things. And so like when the clock struck one, which was our half day entry,

it was like a weight was lifted off my chest. Like I was so relieved and to have that done. And I don't think I ever told my boss I did that, but I get you, I worked harder on that day than I ever would in the office, like strolling to go get my second cup of coffee and you know, taking a little break. I mean, I was like dialed in there for five or so hours. And that's where especially pre pandemic, I have always seen employees do quiet vacationing. Of course, it was not called that, right? That's like a hot new term.

Yeah, yeah, that's a new thing. But it was definitely during the holidays, right? Like in the US, obviously that Thanksgiving week, we are all off federal holiday majority, okay? You know, the Thursday and the Friday, right? And so you, I have always seen a lot of employees do the remote thing, the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, right? And same thing during any winter break, right? Whatever people are celebrating in December, their year in, you see a lot of people kind of do that same thing. They have to go visit in-laws.

So they're going to take the computer and they're going to work in the basement for three days or whatever. And that, at least in my experience, which is like Fortune 100s, that has always been okay. I've never seen a policy against that. And again, that's more salaried employees. That's more when the cat's away like the boss, because the boss is just flat out taking a vacation. You know what I mean? So they're not around to see that. And there's always been that, you know, like in the background,

at least the last couple of decades for me and my experience. But now we shift into this pre-pandemic to Jamie's post. What is that endemic now? Whatever the hell we are, you know? But, you know, now what we see is remote work is a little more common. It's definitely in the conversation. There's definitely polarizing all of this.

And now it's like, well, how is that different? If I'm working at a beach and I'm on and I'm getting my shit done? Exactly. How's that different than that Wednesday before Thanksgiving, where it's the same experience to you as my coworker or my boss? I don't know, right? Do y'all seen policies against it? They're coming. Yes. I mean, you know, I'm doing some consulting work now. So like I've seen remote work policies that are a little bit more strict and have specific guidelines of where you're supposed to be working.

Now obviously I've, you know, spent the last 11 of my 21 years in HR and healthcare. So it is a little different because if you're dealing with patients over the phone and then you, you, you kind of go into HIPAA and whatnot, there, there does have to be some kind of clear guidance. Like if my internet goes out here, I can't go to the Starbucks and talk about to a patient on the phone about their illness when all the Starbucks could hear me for instance. But to that degree, I mean, healthcare is different, right? But I think if as long as you're getting your stuff done, and if you're present on meetings, I don't care if the camera's off and you're interacting and you're doing your work, go for

it. Like, you know what, I don't have a problem with it personally. If you were a member of my team, I would not have a problem with that. Well, that's because you're a green flag, a green flag leader. But I haven't seen too many policies on it. And I think frequently you'll say, well, people with tax and legal, you can't have people work in other locations. And there are limits and people don't always understand this that from, especially in the, I mean, both in the US and abroad, I mean, there's, when you have people for prolonged periods of time working,

you do have considerations of, like if you've moved to another state in the US and all of a sudden come tax time, you're like, oh, you're taking the wrong taxes out. Well, from a payroll, like most companies that have like one payroll person or, you know, it is incredibly difficult to set up more states and it's very time consuming. And it's to those payroll professionals or individuals that have that in their purview. Now it is, it is so hard and frequently it happens because someone's like, oh, they moved

seven months ago to Ohio. We were going to lose them. And we don't have their address. And then it's like, you're trying to, you know, and then you're getting yelled at because you didn't get it right. Nobody told you, so you're not a wizard. But yeah, well, there's different state laws too. There's state laws and then internationally, there's things like data privacy. I mean, there are those considerations. But when people first go to those, I'm like, the most common thing I tend to see is like literally just someone like trying to go have a long weekend somewhere and it's in your, in literally just someone trying to go have a long weekend somewhere.

Exactly. And it's so like trying to manage to the exceptions isn't like thinking about what you can do and talking about those reasonable things and explaining that because most employees don't understand some of the challenges. I mean, there can be like visa considerations, but like, by God, I've gone to like, it was just in the Dominican Republic, check in my email. I don't think you need to create a policy around these things. But some of these issues that you have now, especially through my work, are people are

so afraid, managers are so afraid. And I've seen that from managers that will say, well, but I'm worried if my team's not there then my boss is going to yell. So I think it's really important to have proactive policies and things. So one thing I used to do is when I was both legal and HR, and I left the HR piece better, but we had a big leadership meeting, so it was all of our markets and we were many, many states. And so we had everybody. It was our meeting, so we were away for like four days. And so I said, well, okay, they're like, oh, people are going to be productive. I'm like,

well, let's do a cats away challenge. So I created this cats away challenge. And so I said, well, okay, they're like, oh, you know, people are going to be productive. I'm like, well, let's do a cats away challenge. So I created this cats away challenge. And so all of our markets, it's like, if you met pretty minimal, minimal standards, then everybody could have Friday off. And I was like, you know, coming back, like, I don't want to go to work on Friday either. But so we did it like this cats away challenge. And like, people were excited and we gave updates on it. And so then that sounds fun. Yeah, it was like, it was good. And so when people are like, HR is not your friend, like I, you know, I was, I get it. Like, and so, you know, it can be some of those types of incentives and things like that, that recognize and like joke with people. And like, I would have like

the means and stuff out there of bosses away and like, you know, you recognize when your boss is away, like that is a time that you may like duck out at four o'clock, but like, by God in the ebbs and flows of life, like let them do it. Yeah. Yeah. During COVID, those what, three, four years, whatever it was, to your point about people moving, that's where I started seeing policies that you have to get approval to do that. Because in one of the places that I worked during the COVID times, all crazy, I wanna say 15% probably of the workforce just moved other places.

We had just no idea. And we did not have legal entities established in those states. They were working there illegally. And they flat out just moved. You know what I mean? They didn't just get an Airbnb for the summer. A lot of people did that, right? They were being nomads, jealous, hardcore, which I could have done something cool like that. But it's like, dude, you just moved to Seattle. We have no business on the West Coast. Like you're in a different time zone.

I don't have a legal entity there. We don't know how to pay you. We're running you illegally through the state. We haven't put any papers in through. I mean, there's actually a lot behind the scenes. And so then we, behind the scenes, were shuffling to make that happen. We didn't do something shitty like, you must move back to Massachusetts, which I understand when companies do that, they're like, hey, we only have legal entities and four states. Sorry, you got to choose one of these four states to live in. We can't support it other ways. Well, we can't afford to set whatever up, right?

States to live in. We can't support it other ways. We can't afford to set whatever up, right? But yeah, that's where I've seen the policies that, okay, hey, if you want to relocate to Florida, for example, had a ton of those, oh my God, then you got to let us know, at a minimum. Like, let's have the conversation at least, you know? And I think that that's reasonable. I hate having the blanket statements, but if you are in an organization where they just start putting all these policies in, to me that's pretty short-sighted, you know, on the company's part to just say, hey, no one has the freedom really to live their lives how they want to, you know, which is how that feels to me. And I'm a millennial too. I sound like a Gen Xer when I say that, but you know, you can be flexible. You can create a safe environment because these are one of those things where if the person's performing, who gives a fuck? Honestly, if the person is performing, then oh my gosh, consider it a benefit.

They do. Like, you know, consider it a benefit. But then managers will say, well, that's not fair because my shit performer wishes they can do whatever. Well, sorry, they're a shit performer and you need to manage them a little harder and help them coach them, develop them, whatever, to get to a place where they can work independently and you can trust them, right? And they would get this sort of spiff, right?

I mean, because it really is a retention tool for a lot of people having that sort of flexibility. Well, and it's the quiet part of the quiet vacation. It was kind of similar to the quiet quitting. When people aren't having the conversation, and I do think you see it in two ways. One is team members that aren't saying something to their boss because they're worried about getting no or having to count against their PTO. Well, you have to take PTO if you're going to be there. I don't care. Okay. So it's like hiding it from your boss. Then it's also those managers though, that a lot of managers out there want to give more and are kind of encouraging

their teams to do things behind the scenes because they don't have the influence power to give that person more time off. And so they're like, do what you have to. And so I think in a lot of organizations, including large ones, you have a lot of these microcultures that depend on that manager. And so that's where I think leaders of organizations, including HR, which should report to the CEO, but really taking stock of what's happening that people are afraid to tell us. And what is impacting overall our retention, our engagement, that if we just were more flexible? Yeah, no way.

And then if we look under the hood here, but the problem, why is there even such thing as quiet vacationing is maybe we're not giving people enough PTO and flexibility in their jobs. And if we're losing people and we and we're throwing money at people for retention bonuses, maybe it's as simple as providing them another five additional days of PTO or even just being more flexible with our employees. And gosh, Jamie, like that was, man, that was just circling in my head here is that again, a term is created like quiet quitting. Here's quiet vacationing that puts the onus and blame and Attention onto the workers when the solution is actually this other way It's on the employer side because if your employees aren't talking to you and they are quiet

That's a you issue company. It truly is. It's not a worker issue. That's bullshit. You know what I mean? It truly is. So why aren't your employees talking to you to where they feel they have to quietly vacation? What aren't you providing? What aren't you providing? You can't tell me you just have a ton of bad people doing a bunch of unethical shit. I'm doing air quotes, right? And just having all these vacations and blah, blah, blah. Trust me, it's a minority anyway, because most live in fear if you're in that sort of organization. But I'm sure they're pretty innocent occurrences. But why is it quiet? Because they don't feel safe. Because they don't feel safe. Damn you big business. They do not feel safe.

Oh gosh. I know. Damn the man. Oh gosh. Anything else to say on quiet vacationing, ladies? I want to make sure we fully explored and looked under the hood of that. Both of you today getting that. No, I fixed the carburetor.

Couldn't find it. The radiator thing. Yeah. Okay. Yep. I just thought of something for my question and comments. So I'm going to... Oh, okay.

Well, speaking of then, let's shift. Any questions or comments? Ashley, why don't you go first? When I said that with like the car and the carburetor, like I couldn't find it, it reminded me of that game Operation. And I know previously we've talked about, we've talked about them since. Were you all good at that game? Yes. No.

Because I felt like it was like a jump scare. You're good at that, Lee? Yeah. I remember I got it for my sixth birthday, which was at Chuck E. Cheese and killed the game. I was just killed it. I was good at it. Yeah. I'm not patient enough, I don't think. I was always getting...

You're just jabbing the guy. He's like, let me get this rib. The funny bone. Exactly. Like the sound against it. I thought I was about to say, I think it's an impossible game, but it's not. So, okay, so we're adding this to our stack of board games to play together. Oh, yeah.

We should play that. Yeah. Okay. Ooh, that was a good one. Thank you. I was just going to say, just take your vacation. Don't be scared to take your PTO or, you know, your vacation. You don't have to, you know, if hopefully you have a boss, a millennial boss,

probably that is flexible with you. And as long as you're open and honest with them, you can go quiet vacation on a Friday or in Jamaica if you need to. But that's just a reminder. Yeah. So you're just piggybacking on that. If you're a manager, who gives a fuck if your person's performing? Consider it a spiff and an added benefit. I swear.

Because you want to retain those superstars, don't you? They make you look good. Remember that. So little things like this, people see as a huge benefit. Let them have it. Who gives a fuck? God, let them live. Oh my God. Anyways, that was a quick comment real quick, but for me, not a comment, but a quick question for you ladies.

Any tips for getting the most out of your PTO? Like what are some of your best practices? I can go first because I see you are thinking. For me, I like doing immersive experiences. And what I mean by that is I try and choose vacations, places, tours, whatever, where I can forget about work. You know what I mean? Like whether it's a place that doesn't have cell phone service or whether it's a place where I'm completely bombarded and just my senses are going wild to where I can forget about work, right? Like, so I love big cities, I love museums, I love theater, artsy fartsy, shit like that that like keeps me occupied.

I go to Disney. I would not call myself a Disney adult per se. You all may think differently. But the reason why I choose something like that is because it's so freakishly immersive, I forget about the world outside. That's why I go to those art installations and immersive like Meow Wolves and stuff like that, because then I just forget about the outside.

So that's like my little tip is I do try to pick experiences like that where I can really forget about work. I can't ever shut off my brain. Like even, yeah, like even in the mornings, like that's amazing to me, because like I'm thinking how I'm always thinking about something I need to do next. Like my brain.

Well, that's why I do that. Yeah, I don't. Because I can't shut mine off too. I have ADHD and it's just compulsive. And so it's like, I can't stop. So that's why I do that. Yeah, I don't... Because I can't shut mine off too. I have ADHD and it's just compulsive. And so it's like, I can't stop. So that's why I let me shift it to something else that's like really distracting me, I guess. I don't know.

It works for me. I know that you see different takes from people about whether to take vacation during like holiday times or not. That's what I was going to say. Okay. Well, one thing is I like to be off when other people are off because I do not like being on vacation and having people reaching out to me. I get very stressed by that.

And I now I'm a business owner, so I don't shut off my email, but I really didn't look at it. Like I didn't look at it, but we, for the first time as a business, again, we're a small team, but we shut down as an organization. And again, I proactively told clients that, that we're doing manager training for. And so one thing is as a win for organizations is to think about the times that you're slow

in giving that time off, especially if you're like, okay, well, we're not gonna give some boost of that time off. And I've been successful in organizations as HR pushing for us to give dedicated time off. And one thing I push as well to that, that's a bit harder to convince, is giving far advanced notice of that so people can plan it.

But when you do that, you can reflect reality. If you're gonna be slow anyway, do it, give it to people on top of their time off. People tend to post about it. It can be helpful for employee attraction, retention, all of the things. But there is this real peace of mind when you shut off and everybody else is. So when you're coming back to work, you're not having that full inbox. And remembering the people, if you do have skeleton team of IT finance, things

like that, doing what you can for those people, giving them other time off, splicing it. But for me, that is the secret hack of really giving your teams that dedicated time. Yeah. I mean, yeah, like, look at like the automotive industry takes off, they have a two week shutdown. My father was with GM for 30 years. So I mean, they have a two week shutdown. Now, obviously, I, like I said, I've been in healthcare. So that's, that's something that that could not happen. And I've also worked in a lot of industries that have, you know, 24, seven, like hotels, like hospitality. Um, so that's not physically possible. Um, but I do agree with the hack that holidays, I like to one,

you're using one day less PTO, right? If there's a holiday thrown in there. Um, but two, it helps because a lot of other people take time off during like 4th of July, for instance, it just passed. And it kind of helps because you come back and maybe you don't have 400 emails, you only have 150 emails or whatever.

So that would be my personal hack that I would recommend if you can swing it. What I'd say is if you have any good best practices, you're listening to this podcast, share them with us. And we will share them on the socials, because it just helps all of us enjoy. And hopefully, we can shift to a time where we can just frickin' loud vacation.

Screw the quiet. I'm screaming. Oh, yeah. We are out of office. Oh, bitch. Yeah, that's how I vacation. Screw the quiet. I'm screaming. Yeah. Oh, bitch. Yeah, that's how I vacation. I'm pretty loud about it. I'm not doing nothing bitches. I am good. Yeah, you're good. You're good. You're good about that. Well, I'm just like, I ain't doing this shit. But oh, well, quiet vacationing. Make it loud. Mic drop. Right? Retweet. Mic drop.

Mic drop. Oh, thank you so much for joining us, besties. Don't forget to like, follow, and share.