The Importance of Taking Time off Work—Boss Demands To Know Exactly What Employee Is Doing Before She Will Approve PTO in Viral Social Media Post—‘It Just Feels Weird That She Keeps Asking'

Studies have proven that we are more productive when our brains have the chance to disengage and rest. But it's more than just physical distance and time away. As many studies have shown, you need to actually be able to mentally distance yourself from the work as well. 

I've been there, through many a self-inflicted writing session while I'm supposed to be spending time away or with family. “Just one more post,” I tell my self. But any of us who have found ourselves staring out over a laptop screen at a picturesque beach, knows exactly how draining this is and how exhausted we feel when we actually “return” to work. 

And this is because, as a leading researcher in workplace recovery, Sabine Sonnentag, has found that, while taking leave and paid time off is important, simply taking the time off itself is not enough. The real benefit comes from achieving psychological detachment, the ability to mentally switch off from work and stop dwelling on work-related thoughts. This rest, time away, and time to unconsciously solve the big problems that you face in your work, while you consciously focus on other things, is essential to productivity when you actually return to work, and that's not even fully considering other factors that detract from baseline productivity like burnout. 

We are, of course, in the modern working environment, led to believe entirely otherwise, often being told that the only way to "make it" is to "grind" our way to the top. It's culturally ingrained in us that long hours, no breaks, no time off is the only way to show an employer that you are "dedicated"... whatever that means. When it comes to the expectation placed on modern workers, thanks to our lightning-quick communication technology, midnight messages and weekend calls have become far too commonplace and eat into your time to rest. 

A worker divulged, in a viral social media post, how they were facing difficulty with their boss at work, who repeatedly and increasingly was demanding to know why they wanted to take PTO and where they were heading. 

When it comes to this constant grind of work and the expectations placed on us in the modern workplace, we have to stop and ask ourselves: why, and what is this for? What problems are we solving? And who is benefiting? Simply mindlessly grinding out work for the sake of working is pointless if you're not learning and growing with each iteration and contributing something meaningful that amounts to more than clearing out an email inbox and pushing files around in the name of whatever abomination of the ideal hard work your organization has misconstrued and constructed.   

Even if you are the most loyal and dedicated employee who is willing to go to any lengths for your employer... Well, first of all, I'd take a good, long, and hard look at why you're doing so. Second of all, you have to ask yourself this: Would you be more effective in your role if you took some time off? Or is emptying that email inbox on your weekend and replying to those Teams messages at 11 PM simply keeping you from getting your work done during the day?

But not only does that communication eat into time to rest during the week, when it comes to taking longer breaks, but there is also some expectation that you will still remain connected, with demands being placed that you take your work laptop or phone with you to whatever destination you are headed, should some crisis befall the organization. And the minute that laptop goes into your carry-on, it's not just occupying space and weighing you down physically; it's occupying that same mental space and adding that same mental weight too. Every time you heft your backpack onto your shoulder, you're reminded that the work is still there waiting, and cracking open the clamshell case and booting it up could reveal some string of urgent messages.

And “take your phone/laptop” with you quickly turns to questions of “Where are you going," becoming increasingly invasive and personal as the questions lead on.

In some areas, there are rules against even asking or demanding employees to divulge why they are taking leave. I think there is nothing stopping them from asking, but it is sometimes legally and culturally frowned upon. 

Besides, it's not like you're some dog whose whereabouts need to be tracked at all times. You're a human being who, thanks to the society that we've created, just so happens to trade a (solid) chunk of your time every week to be able to afford food and a warm room with a roof over your head.

It's not totally abnormal to have normal, human-to-human conversations about these things and ask some questions about what they're doing and why they need to take the leave, but that should and only should come down to points of actual personal investment and mutual interest, which are things that are fast disappearing in the workplace. You can't simply show no personal investment in your staff and then suddenly be interested in their personal lives when they submit their PTO request, which has been earned and obligated.

Of course, not every leave request at every point of the year is the same; if there are deadlines or high seasonal volumes of work, it can be harder for a manager to justify swinging the time off.