Just over a year ago, in the wee hours of the morning of March 3, I was standing in a hallway at the Gaylord Hotel in Nashville, Tenn., during a tornado warning with a dear friend and colleague. As we stood there chatting, the Midwesterner in me assured her that everything would be fine. (She is from the Northeast and not as familiar with tornadoes.) We also commented and laughed about how crazy the situation was and how we would remember it for years to come.

For many of us, the trip to the Annual Meat Conference was the last business trip we’ve taken. The work certainly didn’t go away in 2020, and I’m willing to bet that if you’re reading this, you were probably busier in the last 12 months than you have ever been. While AMC 2021 kicks off this week, it’s not going to be the same. No networking. No amazing food in the Expo Hall. No sponsor parties. While we’ve got a great slate of content planned for this year’s virtual gathering, this year’s event won’t provide that sense of normalcy we’ve all been yearning for since COVID-19 entered our vernacular.

It’s that sense of normalcy that we’re all frantically looking for any way we can find it. As I write this, I am sitting by a pool overlooking a canal in Cape Coral, Fla. It is the first vacation I have had in well over a year, and I desperately needed it more than I realized.I suspect many of you are in the same boat. I have two words of advice: Do it! Get away. Get out of your house. Completely disconnect from work (and the house you’ve been trapped in) for several days.

I can hear your silent protests. I can hear the justifications you make to yourself. I made them all myself. I mean, we have all had more “free time” in the past year than ever before, right? No work travel meant more time at home. Working from home meant less time spent commuting and more time to work. Video meeting capabilities meant more meetings. More, more, more. More work, but seemingly less free time. I saw a quote from someone on social media recently that said, “This isn’t working from home, this is living at work.” And as a result, the rate of burnout is higher than ever. Mental health is suffering more than ever, and accessibility to services has not increased.

We are, collectively, like the frog placed in the pot of room temperature water, and unbeknownst to us, the heat has been turned up. And up. And up. Many of us are reaching the boiling point.

Consider a few things:

Work travel, though grueling, offers moments of respite. Those quiet moments on the plane when you might read a book or listen to a podcast or music.Quiet hours in the hotel room at night when you can do whatever you want with no disruption. If you are lucky, a drink or dinner with colleagues where, though you may talk about work, you are also enjoying the company of people who are not your family.

That commute? Time to gear up for the day. Time to unwind before you get home to the challenges that await there. (Because the rest of your family are struggling, too.) Walking to your desk in another room? That doesn’t cut it. Oh, and for those of you who office from your bedrooms … well, I have no advice. (Other than to use a virtual background. Because no one will say it out loud, but it’s a little odd to see your bed, even if it is made nicely.)

For those of you who lead teams, your team needs a break from you. And more importantly, they need to see that it is OK to completely disconnect. Just because we can connect from everywhere now doesn’t mean we should. Repeat that to yourself about a hundred times. I have this week. It is cathartic.

Now, I am going to get back to vacationing for a few more days, during which time I might even plan the next one … lest it be another two years before I think I have time to get away. The only award for being a workaholic is burnout, and I need you to trust me when I say, it is not a badge of honor to wear proudly.

One final note this week: Don’t forget to join me and my fellow co-chair (and partner in crime) Alex Corbishley from Target for the first-ever virtual Annual Meat Conference. The sessions and speakers will be well worth your money and time and we look forward to finding every way possible to connect virtually. And when it is over, we will look forward to Dallas in 2022.

Rediscovering sanity after a year of insanity

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