Top Ten Things Not to Do as You Return to Work after a Long Holiday Hiatus

~ John W. Howell
Photo by Joyce Romero on Unsplash

This post, written by Marie Ann Bailey and me, was published on January 13, 2014. Since the holiday period was quite long this year, and today is the first day back for many of you, I hope it is useful

Top Ten Things Not to Do as You Return to Work after a Long Holiday Hiatus

10.  When returning to work after a long holiday hiatus, do not expect your coworkers who did not take any time off to appreciate hearing how wonderful your vacation was.  If you do, at best, they will smile absently as you regale them with stories of all the reading you got done.  At worst, they will regale you with tales of all the work that’s piled up on your desk, waiting for you, and the fact that you would be fired if it were not for them.

9.  When returning to work after a long holiday hiatus, do not try to incur sympathy by complaining that you had to spend most of it with your in-laws.  If you do, at best, your coworkers will simply try to one-up your story of how your mother-in-law found fault with how you decorated your Christmas tree as usual.  At worst, your complaints will be passed to your spouse at the next opportunity.

8.  When returning to work after a long holiday hiatus, do not pretend to have been gone so long that you forgot your boss’s name.  If you do, at best, your boss will play along and pretend to have forgotten your name and salary grade.  At worst, your boss, who was called into work on Christmas Eve for an emergency in your area, will want to forget who you are and have security escort you from the building as a joke.

7.  When returning to work after a long holiday hiatus, do not expect to find your office or cubicle in the same condition as you last saw it.  If you do, at best, it might be cleaner since the cleaning crew actually had a chance to clean it while you were gone, since most surfaces were uncovered.  At worst, you will find things missing (like your favorite Lord of the Rings post-it notes) because your coworkers took advantage of your absence and treated your office like a come-help-yourself supply depot.

6.  When returning to work after a long holiday hiatus, don’t expect to be able to spend most of your first day back getting “reacquainted” with your job.  If you do, at best, your boss will grudgingly give you permission to spend the day reviewing rather than doing, but in the end, it will cost you.  At worst, your boss will offer you the opportunity to get “acquainted” with the new unemployment policies if you don’t step up.

5.  When returning to work after a long holiday hiatus, do not try to make it sound like your break was more fun than it was.  If you do, at best, you’ll only be competing with your cubicle-mate who, like you, basically stayed home and read all day.  At worst, you’ll find yourself making up stories about scuba diving off the Florida Keys just because your coworker hung out at a nude beach in Pensacola.

4.  When returning to work after a long holiday hiatus, be sure to leave your house at least a half-hour earlier than usual.  If you do, at best, you’ll get to work earlier and have some “quiet time” before the reality of being back hits you.  At worst, you’ll need that extra half-hour because you’ve forgotten the best route and you get lost along the way. (You did drop crumbs, didn’t you?)

3.  When returning to work after a long holiday hiatus, do not bring with you all the cookies and cakes left over from your holiday parties.  If you do, at best, your coworkers will just give you the evil eye since they have resolved to stop eating sweets after the holidays.  At worst, the three-week-old sweets that you left out for everyone else will mysteriously wind up on your office chair, in the shape of a horse’s head.

2.  When returning to work after a long holiday hiatus, do not be surprised if the work you thought your coworker would do on your behalf didn’t get done.  At best, you’ll find a neat stack of reports that need to be reviewed by close of business the day you return and the coworker who had offered to review the reports out on sick leave.  At worst, you’ll find piles of documents strewn across your desk with no clue when they are due or who left them for you, and your boss standing outside impatiently tapping a foot waiting for your report.

1.  When returning to work after a long holiday hiatus, do not expect everyone, including you, to be in a cheery, ready-to-get-to-work mood.  At best, you all will just be experiencing temporary post-holiday depression that will lift after a few days.  At worst, the reality that there are no more holidays until May will hit you like a sledgehammer, and you’ll have a four-month-long headache to show for it.

79 thoughts on “Top Ten Things Not to Do as You Return to Work after a Long Holiday Hiatus”

  3. Friday was Mike’s first day back to work after a two week vacation, and he had to get settled in and readjusted again. That hasn’t been an issue for me since I started working remotely years ago – wouldn’t trade it.

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  11. I can tell you were not a fed, because if you were, you would know that Martin Luther King, Jr Day and President’s Day are both between now and Memorial Day. Would also wish that King had been born in March or April rather than early January, because as you said, it is a long stretch until the end of May. Otherwise your advice rings true, even for us retired (but still volunteering) folks.

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  14. Ah, the joys of working for oneself! The ability to ease back into things is priceless … and so is the pleasure of not having anyone to blame but myself when the work piles up.

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      1. A lot of guys did work over the holidays, getting triple-time pay, the holiday pay plus double-time for working a holiday. I generally worked 12 days in a row, then took a weekend off. I did work a couple of times during the summer time off.

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  17. I enjoyed this list, John. Today would have been my first day back after our two-week winter break if I were still teaching. It was always tough to go back, but I was fine after I got a day under my belt.

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  18. You know what you’re talking about Boss. Playing it even keel, sans cookies or cakes or any amazing vacation pics, is definitely the way to go. And don’t take it personally when your stuff is missing because let’s face it, that complaint box is just for show.

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  21. These are great, John. I learned one year (the hard way) the trick to coming back from an extended vacay was to write down the door code and keep it close at hand until it becomes burned in your brain again or you’ll find yourself locked in the stairwell and have to walk 30 flights down to the lobby only to take the elevator back to your floor. 😉

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      1. Thanks, John. After you’ve walked down30 flights of stairs and then hurried back up on the elevator, the keypad numbers are like a tattoo-you never forget them. It happened in my first week at the law firm-I was terrified I’d get fired.

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  22. Ah yes… the return to work yesterday was uninspiring. I was alone until 10 am! Gave me a chance to sorta try to get my head back into the game.

    And benefits of working in a small office… the chances of missing somethings are lesser (though not impossible)…

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  23. It always amazed me how people who had taken multiple days off during the year still managed to “have time” at the end of the year to wander in and out of the office. And of course, you always wound up having to deal with their end-of-year emergencies instead of doing your own work. Do I miss working in the office at the Holidays? No, John. I do not. Great list…and quite accurate.🤪

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    1. I want to tell you about the time that I was a supervisor in a software contracting group. On New Year’s Eve, I got a call that unless a system agreement was signed by midnight, all the systems would go dark. Two of my employees were working on the agreement and assured me that all was well, then took off on Christmas Eve. I couldn’t reach them to even find the agreement. I had to rely on the supplier to send me the latest version. (Which could have been altered in their favor for all I knew. Looking at the agreement, the amount spent exceeded my level and would require the President’s signature, plus approval from finance that funding was available. Of course, the president was out, and the finance officer was out. The fact that this was my team responsibility made action necessary. Long story short, I had to negotiate the final agreement, get the president away from his holiday, and get the finance office briefed. The agreement got signed by both sides at about 9:30 PM. Needless to say, when those two returned to work, they couldn’t sit down for a week.

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