Technical.ly is going on holiday ’til 2023

To be sure, I cherish my time off. I’ve never been that employee who didn’t use an employer-mandated all-team break to rest or travel as much as possible, nor had so much PTO accrued at year’s end that a manager insisted I take it off in a massive chunk. And, especially since deleting the Twitter app from my phone a few years back (a decision I heartily stand by, for reasons), I avoid social media when I’m on vacation. In other words, I’m not exactly a textbook workaholic.

But I am the type of person who thinks about work on the weekends, who tells his friends and family who are technologists or tech-adjacent professionals all that Technical.ly has to offer them — even when we all said how much we needed that trip or visit because work’s been stressful. And I definitely go into vacations struggling to relax because of all that needed to get done beforehand — and remains when I return.

That impulse to always be on, my ever-growing list of unread emails notwithstanding, is pretty common in journalism. And if you’ve read any of our coverage, commentary or our CEO’s Culture Builder columns over the last year, you know that this hustle-celebrating, rise-and-grind culture is taking its toll in tech, too.

If you’re trying to start your own company, you probably understand this pretty well: the creeping feeling that if you’re not working, you’re losing ground to someone else who wants it more and will push themselves way further than you will.

It’s all very toxic and terrible, of course, and doesn’t in and of itself make you more successful than someone else, no matter what industry you’re in. And many people don’t have the luxury to think about these things when they’re stringing multiple jobs together. But even if an anticipated recession threatens your ability to immediately find a job that respects your desire to protect your energy, burnout’s not going to stop being an issue for employers and employees alike.

So, we at Technical.ly aim to practice what we preach by taking about a week off at the end of every year. In tandem with the policy we made official back in 2019, we’ll head out on a break and stop publishing between this Friday (maybe sooner) and our Jan. 3 return. Expect automated responses to any emails you send us about new products you’re debuting before year’s end.

In that spirit, we wish all of you a happy holiday, during which we hope you’ll take a beat, turn off your computer (except when you’re playing video games or watching sappy holiday movies with loved ones) and spend some time with the people you love the most. That’s certainly what we’ll do.

So, to all of you, we wish you a lovely, restful and clarifying winter holiday. Until we see you again in 2023, enjoy a few of the editorial team’s favorite holiday songs: