11th July, 2006

A break is great, but is it worth all the hassle?

I'M on holiday, losers. If you are reading this, you're not. One of the blessings of holidays is the escape from the tyranny of the newspaper, especially the professional pages. I feel obliged to open mine and read about how pheonomenally successful my competitor lawyers are, how they are poaching bright new brains from other firms (why will no-one poach me? I might not go, but it would be jolly nice to be asked), increasing "market share" and generally sounding like they could teach Bill Gates a thing or two about growing a business (since when did "grow" become transistive?).

So here I am, I hope, in rural France, under the shade of a laden cherry tree, glass in one hand, in the other a gentle novel with a happy ending (I won't read books that make me cry), and trying to persuade myself I deserve it all. My partners and colleagues of course, don't think I do. My vacational happiness gnerates a commensurate level of hatred against me on their part. I know this to be true, because when they are on holiday I hate them. Not that I grudge them a break as such. It's having to do their work which is intolerable.

A business partnership is a strange thing. You would think I should be pleased that my colleagues have work which generates income for the firm, a share of the profits from which I receive. I am pleased, in theory. But in practice I resent this invasion of my desk by a strange file, having to read the thing to get the background story, phoning people I don't know, kidding the clients on I care about them as much as my own. And I know, I just know, that this is what my colleagues feel when I go off myself. They just don't seem to understand that my work is truly more important, my clients really more valuable, than theirs, and that they should count it a privilege to attempt, inadequately I accept, to step into my shoes for a fortnight.

Then there's the clients. They understand about holidays, but not about other clients. Could you not just get it finished before you go - there's not that much in it. True perhaps, but what you can't tell them is that this wholly reasonable request is being replicated by a thousand others. So you throw yourself into the deal in question, burn a lot of midnight oil, antagonise most of your staff, as well as your opposite number, and a few days before you go off you call the client to say it's all ready for him to sign up. What happens? His secretary says that he's off on holiday so can you just hold things over till he gets back?

These twin impostors - colleague resentment and client demand - make the pre-holiday period a complete misery. You desperately try to finish off the awkward things. You dictate lengthy explanatory notes to make things easier, knowing that the one contingency you don't cover will be the one that comes up. Each year you try harder to plan ahead, and to manage the holiday calendar more efficiently. Frankly I don't see why paid staff should get any holidays. They're lucky to be in employment at all. By the time you sign the last letter, scrawl the last yellow post-it plea and sneak it on to your colleague's desk, and lock up the darkened office at dead of night, you are certain you will never take another holiday again. It's just not worth it. And yet, now that I'm here, in the warm sleepy shade....