Back to School

I work at a typical Austrian company (that used to be state-owned and has a very long history) and its mostly middle-aged workforce is comprised of many parents who time their summer and other vacations to align with their children's school holidays. Accordingly, it can get veeery quiet in between Christmas and January 6th and even more so in the months of July of August when a lot of them take at least two weeks of leave of absence. The positive side effect is that you can get away with short and chilled days yourself, should you not be on vacation, use the downtime with considerably less meetings and events for catching up on some neglected administrative tasks, etc. The downside is that it can get a bit boring and most decisions get delayed until "after the holidays". September is usually a very busy month when everybody seems to spring back into actions and everyone thinks it is a good idea to schedule workshops, offsites and meetings with external partners. When you decide to be the odd one out and for whatever reason take a longer vacation outside of the traditional holiday window it will always be you who stands in the way of finding a time for such events "now that everyone is back".