When is a break, a break?

I am all packed up, and ready to depart on a much needed holiday. In 4 years the longest I have had off was a 2 week holiday, which involved me ultimately leaving my car in France, along with a lot of money, a dog dying and 6 hire cars amongst the headlines.

I have booked a week off with my kids and me, being a single dad now, and having a job when I am actually more busy in the school holidays left me having to risk a fine for taking my son out of school for a week.

The orders from school have been clear: have a break, switch off. I understand this, and in an ideal world I would do just that. But I’ve been doing this job long enough to know that my best option is actually to manage contact with me whilst I am off. 

There will be times when my team need to talk to me. I get on well with my team, and know they would only contact me in critical situations. They know they can email and I’ll reply when I can, or if it is a disaster recovery situation, call. 

Of course I have used our tools to delegate roles and work and updated the rota, but even if I didn’t, I am confident the setup we have ensures they don’t need me. (At least for short periods 😉 )

This is where having a team, and particularly an admin assistant work wonders. They know how I want things to work, and they can self manage. They can handle people who want to speak to just their favourite tech and ensure they speak to someone. It’s critical to have these policies in place 24/7 to make holidays easier. 

Doing this means I know jobs won’t be missed in my absence, because I know staff are aware if they don’t ticket, it doesn’t get done – so I know if it’s a ticket it will get seen and not lost in my mailbox. Staff only have the helpdesk number, not my direct line number or my mobile, so I know calls will get answered.

Of course, some people try to get around this, or bemoan it – but I can prove easily the system works. I fact I send out weekly stats that prove it, schools with more tickets are happier – they can see us supporting them. Those with less are more of a concern, they are not using us.

So, whilst I’d love to switch off next week. I know I can be contactable to help my team mates, but not be contactable to the rest of the 7 schools. Will I watch tickets? no. Answer helpdesk calls? no. Emails? Only from team when I can. Why? It helps me relax knowing things are doing okay. And I look forward to returning refreshed and energised knowing where I am and what I need to do. 

Besides, I have no wifi and just a tablet and an iPhone, and I’ll be 3 hrs away. I won’t be able to do to much anyway 😉