It’s that time of year when we may be looking forward to our holiday away, but we may not be looking forward to our work colleagues doing the same. With increased workload and stretched team members, for those of us who don’t have a break this summer, September can’t come soon enough.
Holiday etiquette is a real thing when it comes to work dynamics and making sure that our workplaces don’t end up becoming toxic. Happiness, feeling valued and reducing stress allow us to maintain good mental and emotional wellbeing at work. So this is no small thing to focus on.
Each and every one of our workplaces is different, with different ways of working, types of work, skill sets and team dynamics; but one thing we all have in common is that we will have all experienced colleagues who fit into certain unhealthy or unhelpful holiday-etiquette types. You may recognise some of these…
Dumpers
These are the work colleagues who dump on you; they don’t sort out the work projects they are responsible for before they go on holiday, they don’t do a proper handover and they don’t warn you about any difficult things that might come your way. Yet you are still expected to pick up the pieces whenever they are away. This tends to be a recurring holiday etiquette theme, which can get pretty frustrating.
Braggers
These colleagues spend hours each day reminding you about the fact they are going away, give you every last detail of their amazing trip, and do this for at least a couple of months before their holiday even starts. You find your remote meetings with them take a good 10 minutes longer, and this doesn’t even take into consideration the debrief you get when they return. Not only could this be jarring if you haven’t gone away yourself, it also probably affects your time efficiency and productivity.
Moaners
These colleagues, even though they have been lucky enough to have a break away, spend their time either moaning about how difficult the holiday has been to plan or organise; or, if a tiny, insignificant thing has gone wrong, about the things that weren’t absolutely perfect while they were away. They may even wax lyrical about how they don’t feel rested at all, or they would have rather been at work – hardly helpful if you haven’t been away yourself.
If you recognise some of these types, you are not alone. And don’t worry: there are some solutions to maintain your own wellbeing, and your work relationships so that unseen resentment doesn’t build. Here are some “feel better” solutions you may want to employ…
It can be hard to focus when there is someone toxic in the office (Photo: Hinterhaus Productions/Getty)Pre-empt the dump
If you know who the dumpers are, be proactive and arrange early meetings with them to discuss a deadline for handovers, ask them what has been taking up a lot of their time or diary space lately, and create boundaries around what you can and can’t pick up for them. Ask them who they have made promises to or who has expectations of what may happen while they are away. Even if, after that, you are dumped on with a lot of stuff, you can sit down and prioritise what is urgent, and let those people across your organisation, customers or clients know early what the new time frame may be, and prepare a handover back for your colleague when they return.
Block the brag
It’s nice when people have fun and have done lovely things, but you do need to try to limit their air time for this, given how fast we are all expected to work nowadays. Listen but don’t encourage, and don’t ask any more questions than are necessary. Consistently divert the conversation back to work issues. Emotionally, so you don’t feel a sense of FOMO, make sure you have some nice, new and different things to look forward to while your colleague is away so you feel you have had a break too.
Minimise the moan
Listening to people moaning drains our energy, so we need to learn to say no. Avoid having one-on-one meetings with just them, so someone else in the meeting can be your ally in keeping things directed. Create something that requires your urgent attention so you have a chance to end your interaction, or mention at the start of the meeting that you have to go at a certain time, so they are aware. Emotionally, it can be hard to take if you haven’t had a break yourself, but instead of feeling down or resentful, why not focus on getting yourself back up to date with your workload, moving forward with your work projects and achieving things towards your career goals. If a holiday is not on the cards for you this summer, it is possible to reframe that into something positive to make you feel a whole lot better.
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