Nerd Journey Bonus 03: Holiday!

Welcome to the third Bonus Episode of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solution Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we talk about the effects of work on holidays and what we collectively do to unplug during the season.   Original recording date: 2018-12-03 Topics 2:55 What has the effect of your job been on your holiday experiences? • Audience Responses • Working (Business as usual) • Busier than usual • Holiday actually is vacation time • Nick’s experiences • Making the call on physical security episodes • Backup tapes still needed to be swapped • Upgrade of a lifetime • – Epicor upgrade over Thanksgiving ○ “We’re upgrading over Thanksgiving.  Line in the sand.”  – Tom Delicati • Large blended family experiences • John’s experiences • Blended family • Y2K ERP test ○ John jokes about doing it in a parallel vSphere environment w/NSX (in 1999) ○ Prince’s 1999 • Leftover holiday pie for breakfast ○ 14 respondents 57%  Yes 7%  No, but I’ve heard of it 36%  No, I’ve never heard of this 19:14 How did you allow/force yourself to unplug during the holiday season? • Audience Responses • Huge challenges to actually unplug • Easy to unplug with a conscious decision • Lots of management support to unplug • Funny response ○ Cutting troublesome family from one’s life • Self-improvement • John’s experience • Wholesale distributor made up holidays with extra shifts later • Gave gift cards around Thanksgiving and Christmas • Lessons learned ○ Ask for protected time, or clearly defined benefit like time-and-a-half comp time for holiday on-call ○ No? Ok, that’s a strike against the employer ○ Those employers who prioritize holiday time with the families are looking pretty good • Nick • Difficult to fully detach (even without push notifications) • Kids’ school schedule vs. parental work schedule • Keep busy with family activities (completely full schedule) • Read a book / blog / post in the community July 2018 vacation – Podcast launch