Brad Rateike: You took a spring break? Good for you.

I feel like spring break came back with authority this year. Starting at the beginning of March and continuing well into April, rarely has a day gone by when I have not received a vacation-related “out of office” reply or cancellation notice for a standing meeting due to scheduled participants being on PTO.

My belief in taking time off when you need time and/or can get time off is well-documented, so I am neither frustrated nor annoyed with this trend in the least. I am impressed.

Pre-pandemic, I remember people being “hesitant” to admit they were unplugging, as if not manning your laptop at all hours was a sign of weakness. Many of my friends and colleagues are “owning” it this year (my wife and I included). One autoreply I received the other day bluntly stated, “I am on vacation until (date) and am not checking emails regularly.” Period. Full stop. That is crystal-clear messaging, especially with the underlying implication: “I am thinking about anything but work right now; I would encourage you to do the same. In the meantime, I will get to you when I get to you.”

Taking this a step further, I am most impressed by a general lack of complaining about this in my professional world. Some might fear sounding hypocritical or they might fear being viewed as the office jerk for attempting to cast any dispersion on an event that this year seems to be treated as sacrosanct.

From my amateur viewpoint, it does not appear the national economy has come to a halt due to people hitting the slopes, the beach, the campground or Broadway, which makes me hopeful that the temporary “truce” on workplace shaming might have a chance to continue.

Many of us have known a work-martyr colleague who has taken an indifferent view toward the concept of “vacation” and treated time off as a lack of dedication to the organization. I have friends who went through a period when they exclusively vacationed overseas or in extremely remote locations, largely because they were concerned that, if there were a chance they could be pulled into something work-related, they would be. They were defending against the “I know you are on vacation, but …” colleague.

I know others who have expressed their frustration in the past with another type, also known as the, “I know you are out of the office but knew you were still in town, so …” colleague. This one can be tricky because this person shows an ability to not only interrupt your attempt at relaxation but also do so while passing judgment on it for geographical reasons.

We do not want to live in a world where we feel we must submit our plans to a “time off emperor” who decides whether skipping work that day is acceptable. Thumbs-down to that behavior, which is why the appearance of societal shift excites me.

I am neither a statistician nor an economist, but the last few weeks have made me feel as if many of the people I know and work with are trying to put the pandemic behind them. Embracing spring break might be a sign of our collective impatience to return to doing things we had previously done, or maybe we all just saw a chance to take some time off and we took it, judgment be damned. Either way, sign me up for this kind of acceptance—all year long.•

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Rateike is founder and owner of BAR Communications and served as director of cabinet communications for President Donald Trump. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.

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