The Art of Permission

When we’re kids we’re raised by out parents to ask if it’s okay to have a snack or go over to a friends house or play on an electronic. At school we ask the teacher if we can run to the bathroom in the middle of class or we ask if we can have a piece of candy from the bowl on the teachers desk. Most of our lives as kids is spent with the phrase, “can I ?” or “may I?”. Truthfully this also goes hand in hand with parents being the ones that make decisions for their kids until they are legal adults. Even as adults we ask if something is okay to do out of respect. “Can I use your restroom?” or “do you mind if I smoke?” or “dan I borrow your car really quick?”.

When it comes to our jobs, we do ask for permission. “Can this report wait until next week?” or “is this time okay to meet to discuss?”. A job is an interesting thing. You are employed to contribute your professional expertise to an organization and do as your asked within the confines of your scheduled work hours as it relates to the position you hold at the company. There are great companies out there that accept the fact that you’re and adult with your own personal life and sadly there are some who don’t. If you started your career with a bad company and later went to a good one, the new employer may scratch their heads at why you’re asking to take a sick day or plan a vacation. So this article is a good reminder that you’re at an employer as an adult and not a kid who needs permission…within reason.

If you understand the fundamentals of staffing, you know that in some instances, a team needs minimal coverage to do what needs to get done. You know you need to take a vacation and if you have a good employer, they know this too. That being said, just depending on how many people are out, you may need to take it earlier or later. There is going to be a ninety percent chance that there are no conflicts and your week is free. So your mindset should never be in a perspective in asking if you you can take time off. You’re mindset is that you’re going to do it. If you’re thinking as a team player, you’ll factor work into your decision as best you can. Ask your manager if you can see the schedule. You may already be able to see it in most cases. See anyone else off? How long are they out? If its just a couple of days, book that vacation and put in the time off. Your leadership will manage being down a person for a couple of days seeing as there is only one other person out on a team of more than eight to ten people. If there are already a lot of people with time on the calendar and you haven’t booked your vacation yet, speak with folks you’re planning with about earlier or later weeks. In the rare case that you have solid dates you can’t move and you have a small team, speak with your manager ahead of time. Most leaders just appreciate that you took the time to bring the situation to them. It could be that your boss can fill in for you or get someone from another department to help out. You can always approach your management with a tough situation if you’re at a good employer. Additionally, most of us get cold’s or flu’s and Covid is still a thing. These are things you can’t plan for. In these cases, no matter what is going on, you are communicating with your management to let them know you WILL BE OUT for a few days. You don’t need to check to see if it’s okay to rest. In some cases, if you sound bad on a meeting, your leader might ask you to rest. They need you at your best.

The flip side of this coin is that you may or may not have worked for, or are currently working for a very bad employer. I worked for a company that despite having plenty of staff, imposed “black out dates” on when people could take vacations. Those only exist with travel companies for people looking for promotions and discounts. I was often denied vacations over a different employee because the manager liked that person more than they liked me or because they knew that person. If you’ve endured what feels like a lifetime of working under this type of employer, it’s time to update your resume. Employment is payment for professional services during a set amount of time each day. Employers can claim no ownership over their employees. Here’s where things get tricky with a bad employer. Say that they tell you “no” for a vacation even though you said you are taking one and you’ve booked the dates. Here in the US you work in an “at-will” employment situation which means that generally, if you aren’t out sick, your employment can be terminated for any reason within the respect of state labor laws. They all vary. If you’re out sick and you’re fired, you may have legal recourse. If you’re out on vacation, you probably don’t. But look at it this way. They were a bad employer to begin with so you killed two birds there. You got the vacation and you don’t work for a bad employer anymore.

There is one more situation you need to look out for. Being overworked. In most cases, we work for good people but we do this to ourselves. A good employer will probably remind you that despite the heavy work load, it will be there when you return the next day. I had a performance review with someone who kept staying late because he wanted to make sure the customers were being taken care of and to get ahead of things. This caused two issues. It was too much cost in overtime and it was burning him out. So I then gave him a set amount of extra time he could work if he wanted it but not to go over it. I also urged him to consider that if he’s on top of his work everyday, he should go home and spend time winding down like we all do. As a leader, I can’t have a burnt out team because it compromises the quality in which the work is being done. I recognize that the time to have a personal life is fuel needed to be the best one can be at work. In my time working for a bad company, I can tell you that for a period of about two years, I had four days off a month. There were two weeks out of the year where I was working seven days a week and generally I was working ten to twelve hours a day. The general message from the company was, “go home and you’re fired”. I was burnt out. The last straw and the decision to look for a new employer came one night when I had worked a 14 hour day, came home, had barely eaten a very late and very cold dinner and was asked to go back out to drive to a facility two hours away (or I was fired). So, like I had done for such a long time, I obliged. I got where I needed to, stayed there for 5 hours and left on a Saturday morning to go home. What was dangerous about that was that I shouldn’t have been behind the wheel of a vehicle. I had asked my manager for a hotel before heading up there and he said no. I had to pull off the road for a couple of 10 minute winks in a parking lot so the police didn’t think I was a drunkard. When I got home I had realized one thing. My employer didn’t care about me at all and they never had. I was a number on a sheet of paper and…as long as they got a big chunk of money for the work done, I didn’t matter to them. Another time years before, I was REALLY sick to my stomach and I asked my boss if I could go home. He said no. I threw up in my car, finished work and had to be up again the next morning regardless of how I felt.

No matter the circumstance, work/life balance is very important and more and more companies are making it more central these days. They realize that growth comes with happy and well rested people who are fulfilled. Sadly there are still companies out there looking for a number. The answer to this is not to be one. The bad employer I mentioned was lucky to have had me as long as they did, but the amount of self respecting people that went through them meant that they would quit within a week or a month. The truth is that nothing is more important that your own personal wellbeing. You need to take time off and your employer will more than likely understand that. Ask yourself this question. When was the last time you took more than a few days off from work?