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I’VE RECENTLY RETURNED to work after taking 12 weeks of paternity leave.
For me, twelve weeks is a long time to be away from work, but it was available to me as a team member in Core. In a career in advertising and marketing strategy of over fifteen years so far, the longest I have ever been away from work before this was four weeks, to get married.
I won’t pretend that day one of coming back to work wasn’t a little foggy. It felt strange to be back behind a desk (albeit in my attic) and linking into video calls. After a shaky start, the muscle memory of my day-to-day work has returned quickly. I have found that my first week back gave me an opportunity to reflect on the value of time off has held for me but also for my employer.
Firstly, and most importantly, it gave me time to just be with my family. We all have many roles to play. We have many hats to wear. A person can be a team member at work but also a partner at home, a parent to their children, a son or daughter in their own family.
Twelve weeks of paternity leave allows you to take a proper break from one of these roles to give more time to the others. The priority was of course my own children. My beautiful new daughter yes, but also my three-year-old son.
I don’t think you can overestimate the value of such dedicated time when kids are young. They will no doubt reach an age in the future when they want their independence and will avoid me like the plague. But creating an early bond (when they actually want you around) feels so important, and this time has helped me form and strengthen those bonds with both of my kids.
It also gave me time with my wife, and very importantly for me, it has made her maternity leave a little easier (I hope) for having me around for a few months. It gave me time with my wider family and friends. This feels so important. It is easy to become disconnected to those closest to you in times like those we are now living through. This is ironic given they are the people you need the most to help you through these times.
The good news is that it is also easy to reconnect if you can get the time to do so, and I have. The time off also gave me (in small chunks) time to myself. With a young family and a busy career, this is something we often neglect. All of this was temporal gold.
Time to go fallow
Secondly, it gave me a break. A real one. Work can give us energy. It can interest us, inspire us, motivate us. But naturally enough, it also takes energy from us, of a different kind. You don’t often notice, but 15+ years is a lot of energy to put into something. Work-life balance helps, and two weeks in the sun can give us a reprieve from the flow of energy into work.
However, a longer break can be important in renewing ourselves. We see this in other places all the time. Farmers will leave a field fallow for a time to allow soil to recover. Athletes may choose to forgo a season or a few competitions to gain recovery and rebuild energy. But we rarely think of ourselves in this way when it comes to our careers.
Twelve weeks gets you past the lingering thoughts about this project or that work issue in a way that a two-week holiday cannot do. It really lets your mind totally focus on other things.
This mental break and switch in energy output is hugely restorative. They say a change is as good as a rest. Twelve weeks away from has given me both, and I am better for it.
Thirdly, a break of this kind interrupts what can become habitual behaviour at work and puts you back in the real world for a while. As a strategic planner, I spend a lot of my time looking for consumer insights, trawling through data, reports, and research. I get out from behind the desk periodically to ensure I am using observation as well as reported data.
However, you are always looking at things analytically, critically and in thin slices of observation. A three-month break allows you to stop thinking about consumer journeys and behavioural norms and just be a regular punter, without overthinking it.
In many ways such a break allows you to get off the carousel for a moment and pause many of the conceptions you have about how things work, in favour of just casually experiencing them. It removes the recency effect from how we work, where the last project you worked on disproportionately influences how you tackled the next one.
This clearing out of mental debris is refreshing. I have found myself returning to work much more open than before. I have less assumed preconceptions, less confirmation bias. I am mentally uncluttered.
This all benefits me and my family greatly. I am more connected to them, more balanced, more mentally open and generally more content.
But this also benefits my employer. I return happy with my home life, and a happy worker is a better worker. I return rested (well with a baby and a three-year-old maybe rested is not the right word, maybe un-jaded is better). I return focused and ready to think. Most of all, I return grateful.
I am grateful for the time I have been given when family needed to be my sole focus. In a market where paternity leave as long as I experienced is rare, its benefits are many. I am glad that Core put my relationship with my family above the company. I am also glad that this will benefit the company in the longer term. It’s a win-win that I hope becomes the norm, not the exception.
Shane Doyle is a strategy director at Core.
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Gave up at neo liberal
@SFNutters: the words were too difficult for you? Maybe you might have better luck with this: https://www.cjfallon.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/photo41.jpg
@SFNutters: what an awful article. Full of non-supported arguments, logical fallacies and sweeping generalisations. Turgid stuff. Frankly, we should be measuring things because then we can improve or discard them. The fact that Mary (Jane/ Joe / John) grew up in an area and has a heart DOESN’T necessarily make him/her the right person to help those in need. The author admits addiction is a complex subject but wants only simple solutions delivered by simple people. It was hard to read and complete nonsense.
@lambda sensor: don’t know why you’re trying to discuss it with him. He said he didn’t read it. I do agree that it was full of nonsense, though.
@SFNutters: , Don’t you know anybody with basic level English who would read it for you and explain the the difficult words.
@SFNutters: great bit of stuff
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: their getting plenty of thumbs up
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: their getting plenty of thumbs up for there comment
Plenty of accusations in that article but no examples, case studies or even a full explanation of the alledged cons of either ‘professionalism’ or a ‘managerial’ approach. Reads as a politician who is writing merely to draw attention to themselves without actually achieving anything.
@Vocal Outrage: here’s an example. Medical care is privatised in the US. Insulin costs far more than all or most other countries. People are dying. I live in Denmark. Have to have a minor hernia operation. From the time I seen the doctor until my operation next week. About 5/6 weeks. Won’t cost me a penny apart from what I’ve paid in tax. I’m thankful I don’t live in America.
@Dave Thomas: but not an example of the accusations being made in the article, that’s just an example of neo-liberalism with no reference to Ireland
Did she get the tattoos to match the dress, or the dress to match the tattoos?!?!?
@Maximus Decimus Meridius: not the greatest of comments there!
Exactly. Too many publican TDs pretending addiction ISN’T their business….
@The Risen: Ditto, and if addiction issues were solved there would be a fair few charlatans out of work along with a small cohort of genuine workers
Professionalisation and metrics are vital tools in ensuring government funding is put to the best use. Community projects and those they serve can only benefit from proper standards and controls. Those who resist will not survive. What will their service users do them Ms Ruanne ?
Neo liberalism = cut throat self employment with little reward and insecure retirement for the masses.
@Gav Murphy: I think you’re mixing up neo-liberalism with libertarianism. The later fits better with your description whereas neo-liberalism is defined academically as a ‘third-way of politics’ in that it is a middle ground between the right and the left
@Vocal Outrage: It’s meaning has changed over time. Thatcher and Reagan were hardly ‘middle ground between the right and left’ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
Sadly it is a business – some many hangerson, all the €€€s go to the councilors and clinic and not the victims – just like the homeless racket
@Peter Buchanan: correct, it is a business. People working in the field need to be paid, premises need to be paid for, services need to be paid for & all the funds need to be accountable. The service users are not objects but they are customers in the sense that high numbers are needed to receive high funding. It’s a business just like medical, phara or any other service being provided.
@Mark Dowling: there is a book called RGM recovery group movement$$%%%%%$$$
@Aine Power,
I smell a tad of begrudgery there,I dont the
writing is particulary well written but she is entitled to her oppinion .
Sick of these absolute hypocrites, take a senators salary and can’t write an absolute original article, I have a PhD from Trinity and it’s like a second year essay. Its trite full of quotes from other people.
@Aine Power: Brilliant! So what you have just decreed is that you have a phd and it like a second year essay. It must beg the question? How did manage to receive the PhD?
@Aine Power: thanks for clearing up your intellectual qualifications I await your life story in relation to your journey to PhD land …some people rise to the challenge and serve the people and earn the salary all be it via the alternative route of life experience
@Aine Power: hope you got someone to proof read your PHD.
I think the point she is trying to make is that “cost effective” or neoliberal measurement of addiction issue is likely to measure just the tip of the iceberg
its difficult to understand and measure, and thus easy to ignore or underestimate the complexity of addition as a medical, but mostly psycho-social problem. (addition, almost always runs with, mental illness, poverty, homelessness, unstable families or other personal trauma, physical illness, .. Etc..)
Thus risks attributing not enough of the resrouces to the wrong places, needed to tackle this issue.
Hands on, frontline workers should be given the opportunity to identify needs & suggest resource allocation. Not just some detached person in an office who 2
measures the problem & allocates resourced based on predetermined “check list” of “key performance indicators”, designed to keep down costs is likely to produces good “measured outcomes” which don’t translate into good care on the ground.
@Señor picante: if a politician is going to write an article thr reader shouldn’t have to ‘think the point she is trying to make’, the point they are trying to make should be clear and unambiguous with the reader expecting to think about the substance of the arguments made, not the point of the article itself
The person taking the drugs or whatever is the primary person responsible for their dilemma. There is no point in blaming anyone else. Socialists never seem to grasp or acknowledge that some people are the sole authors of their own misfortune.
I don’t have a degree or PhD but I believe I have a small degree of common sense and reasonable experience of addiction problems. The senators article for me is full of big words with little meaning without some concrete examples of her argument.
Addiction treatment is not a business but it must be run like a business, but where or how we measure the success is very difficult because the treatment of addiction to individuals is an ongoing treatment and can last a number of years success and statistics of a business tend to be yearly based.
Social care now
I agree with most of the criticisms of Sen Ruane’s statement.
In a spirit of debate, I would like to know in detail the alternatives that she proposes. It’s easy to be against something! It’s more challenging to propose alternatives in detail.
Tattoo s on a senator.im appalled.
You need to have walked a 100m in her shoes to understand difficulty in life..addiction…recovery and bettering of oneself …fancy phrasing and wine sipping bullshit just does not qualify as opinion
@Brotherofthebrush: as someone above highlighted, everyone is entitled to their opinion, just because you may not agree with it does not diminish that right
Well said Lynn. Thanks
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