My husband and I were fortunate enough that our families gave us a honeymoon as a wedding present but it's raised some interesting points for me to think about! The main one being: How do you work a holiday round your business? Fly half days during the week and an extra day for a long weekend don't really count. I'm thinking like our week away to Menorca.
My husband get's a little annoyed that I take my blackberry and laptop away with me wherever we go, but I try to explain that I am my business and that I need to be close at hand if anyone should need me. Again I'm very fortunate that my family is willing to jump in and lend a hand at looking after things if I go away, but they don't know the complete in's and out's! I suppose more training would be in order so they know the best suppliers to go to when they need something and how best to price an order that doesn't meet our standard price list, as well as a few more things. But I feel that while I'm not really in the position to have someone fully trained up yet this still leaves me taking my blackberry and laptop as part of my luggage!! Hunting down a wifi spot or getting my mobile internet working isn't always useful, so my blackberry is my connection to the world.
The only thing is taking 30 minutes out when your swimming, bbqing or exploring to chat about work related things doesn't always work well as you may not have all the info to hand etc, or training may not have been finished on the thing needing done. I took a day off during the summer to finish things of for our wedding or something like that and I ended up spending the afternoon on skype talking my sister through how to setup a design that was needed while we were gonna be away after the wedding. FYI the desktop sharing function on skype, but like i said fly half days and long weekends don't count.
My husband get's a little annoyed that I take my blackberry and laptop away with me wherever we go, but I try to explain that I am my business and that I need to be close at hand if anyone should need me. Again I'm very fortunate that my family is willing to jump in and lend a hand at looking after things if I go away, but they don't know the complete in's and out's! I suppose more training would be in order so they know the best suppliers to go to when they need something and how best to price an order that doesn't meet our standard price list, as well as a few more things. But I feel that while I'm not really in the position to have someone fully trained up yet this still leaves me taking my blackberry and laptop as part of my luggage!! Hunting down a wifi spot or getting my mobile internet working isn't always useful, so my blackberry is my connection to the world.
The only thing is taking 30 minutes out when your swimming, bbqing or exploring to chat about work related things doesn't always work well as you may not have all the info to hand etc, or training may not have been finished on the thing needing done. I took a day off during the summer to finish things of for our wedding or something like that and I ended up spending the afternoon on skype talking my sister through how to setup a design that was needed while we were gonna be away after the wedding. FYI the desktop sharing function on skype, but like i said fly half days and long weekends don't count.
I've seen several business and know one or 2 others that take a week or 2 in the year and shut shop, let their customers know they'll be closed and that's it holiday time. As far as I'm aware these businesses don't get a lot of on the spot sales, I do know that they get large orders with deadlines and people are informed that anything required during the holiday time has a deadline date and after that, well too bad, but maybe not quite as douchey as that. This works for them, or it seems to but for myself i feel that my business can't close for a week, have the phones down or diverted as this may put people off, send them elsewhere and generally loose us customers. And here we are back to my dilemma!!
So I'm happy that I've had a holiday this year and that there are people that can take care of things while I'm away. I guess whether you take your business with you on holiday comes down to personal preference, but I feel that if i were forced to not take laptop or blackberry and never to seek out a wifi spot the least i could do is have a living breathing answer service for my customers, be happy in the knowledge that the ones that have time and want to use our service will return and that if they don't well, their loss i guess.
Or maybe i could save a little space in my carry on for my blackberry...................
Update: 08/10/09
After making this post a few friends on Facebook saw the link and I got a couple of comments I wanted to share....
"Now that's tough even when you work in the holiday business! The trick is to choose a time when you are traditionally quiet, and let everyone on your contact list know at least three weeks before you go away that you are on holiday. You'd be amazed how many folks need you when they know you are about to take a holiday"
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