I spent a total of 10 weeks quiet vacationing all over the world without my boss finding out. Here's how I did it.
04.10.2024 - 10:08
/ insider.com
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tobi Oluwole, a 30-year-old former sales manager at a Big Tech firm who recently relocated to France. His former employer is known to Business Insider but is not named for confidentiality. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
In 2022, I took a trip once every six weeks or so, but I only officially submitted two weeks of vacation time. Instead, I quiet vacationed for seven weeks — including a Euro trip with my wife. Before leaving my sales manager job at a well-known Big Tech firm in June 2023, I quiet vacationed for three weeks that year, only submitting one week of vacation time.
Over the course of 15 months, I spent a total of 10 weeks quiet vacationing from my fully remote job. I think quiet vacationing may be good for productivity; I was genuinely so happy while traveling the world, and it translated into my productivity at work.
I grew up moving around — I was born in Lagos, Nigeria and then moved to Brussels; Atlanta, Georgia; Tennessee; Toronto; Ottawa; and Lyon — and always wanted to see more of the world. In June 2021, right after my wife and I closed on our house, we decided that our next priority was travel and do a European trip in 2022.
My wife also worked remotely for the same tech company, so we got an AMEX Aeroplan card, spent 2021 gathering 250,000 points, and banked them in August 2022 for our Euro trip.
Growing up all over the world, I had old friends in all these cities, so I spent a lot of time on my quiet vacations visiting with friends and family. I also officiated a friend's wedding in Lisbon, did some sightseeing, and watched a Barcelona football game live at the Camp Nou stadium.
Here was what my itinerary looked like for quiet vacations in 2022 and 2023:
I loved my job and my team, and I had the best boss. At the time, I was a sales coach, leading a team of eight people. I learned how to delegate, prioritize, and break down my tasks and assign them to the team members I trusted so I could hit my goal every quarter.
I always told my direct reports where I was, so they knew when I was on a quiet vacation, but my boss didn't always know because if I told him, he would've likely made me submit my vacation days officially, which I didn't want to do.
If I was the main contact for a project or it needed to be obvious that I was gone, then I'd officially submit time off. But if it was the beginning of a quarter, I didn't have projects running, and I was working in the same time zone or within Canada, such as in Mexico, the US, Vancouver, and Toronto, I would just take a quiet vacation.
While traveling, I typically only worked two to four hours a day. On some quiet vacationing days, I had to work a little later