For their 15th wedding anniversary, Katie Walley-Wiegert and her husband decided to take a beach holiday with their young son. But the trip did not go as planned. Walley-Wiegert ended up needing to pack her computer because of a work assignment she could not ignore.
The 38-year-old marketing professional had just landed a podcast interview for an executive she worked with, and he had a short window to prepare. As she laboured away through most of the holiday, she regretted not being present for her toddler’s introduction to the ocean.
“I know my husband and my son are having this once-in-a-lifetime first experience, and I am missing it,” Walley-Wiegert says. “And it’s heartbreaking in some regards, because that first will never come again.”
Navigating the line between work time and personal time is tricky for a lot of people. With laptops and smartphones making it possible to log in anytime to do work from anywhere, many find it hard to disconnect, even when they take holidays.
“It doesn’t take much to just quickly answer an email on your phone or just quickly open up the laptop whilst you’re lying next to the pool,” says Marais Bester, an occupational psychologist in the Netherlands and a senior consultant at SHL, a talent acquisition and management platform.
“You get your company-issued phone, you get your company-issued laptop, and there is an expectation to some extent to respond as quickly as possible.”
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