My employer only provides five personal days per year, but life requires more flexibility than that. How can one find balance and take the time necessary to manage work and personal time without giving the impression you are not serious about your job?
The average working person has 104 personal days per year to take care of personal matters — they are called weekends. When you add the other personal days, company holidays and vacation days, most people already work a part-time schedule! OK, I’m not being insensitive to the demands of work/life balance — they are real and challenging — we all face them. But millions of people find balance, demonstrate they are serious about their careers and manage to take care of their personal needs at the same time. The theme here is personal — only you can answer this question, but the problem isn’t the five days per year that the company provides.
I find the forced merriment and small talk of holiday parties quite uncomfortable and was wondering if I can just skip it without consequence?
I generally enjoy the holiday season, but as an HR executive I see the holiday party as a game of “Survivor” with limited potential to enhance your career and innumerable opportunities to hurt it. The office holiday party is a work event, and it is not the time or place to “party hardy.” Think of it as an intimate cocktail dinner with your boss and the exec team rather than New Year’s Eve with your friends — which includes how you dress! A few other tips: Feel free to nibble on food, but shoveling a mountainous pile from the buffet onto your plate and then into your mouth is a don’t. Whatever your alcohol limit is before people notice you’ve been drinking — or the lamp shade makes it onto your head — cut that in half. Keep conversations light, don’t hold anyone hostage and move on. Once you’ve been seen by the boss and thanked everyone responsible for putting it together, no one will think twice if you make a graceful exit. Other than that, enjoy!