URSABLOG: Sealing Our Holiday Plans

All of us in shipping, at least those with customer or ship facing roles, know the feeling: you are on holiday, enjoying times with your loved ones, or sizing up candidates who could be your potential loved ones, and you get a call or a text that pierces the fantasy that you don’t work in shipping, and can lead a normal life, and have a normal holiday. The environment you thought you were in – sun, sea, mountains, historic cities, beautiful people and alcoholic drinks with bits of fruit stuck in them – all melt away to reveal a dreary grey background, and you are back in the matrix of shipping.

Let me say at this point that shipping is different than any other industry, and we should all just accept the fact. From very early on in my career I realised that ships, and the people on them, are working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They need to be looked after, and their needs catered for. More than that shipping is a global service industry and the demands of our customers are constant, even if at times they are unreasonable. Our world does not stop, markets do not conveniently pause just because our we want to take a couple of weeks off, and not be disturbed. Likewise news does not stop, events do not cease to happen – even if they are less reported – and money does not stop changing hands. We have to remain engaged in the world that we have chosen. This is doubly so when, like me, it is not just my business, my deals, that need to be dealt with, but also the company as a whole.

I know I get most stressed when there is nothing happening, no deal on the horizon, nothing to move forward or progress. I find it very, very difficult in those circumstances to take a proper break because I feel I could be missing out on something. So the laptop is plugged in every morning, and emails are trawled through and messages sent. The phone is always on. Even if I do come up with a bright idea, or even a fairly dim one, and a message is sent or a call is made, most of them lead to nothing; the recipients are usually away and wisely taking a break from work, and don’t wish to be disturbed by a dubious (or even a great) idea destroying their own rest. It can all seem a bit pointless. But it has to be done.

If there is something happening, and progress needs to be made, negotiations concluded, a ship to be delivered, then perhaps paradoxically I find myself more able to relax. There is a point to working, and sometimes, especially if there is success, celebrating with a special meal and a special wine in a beautiful place, congratulating oneself to have the good fortune to be able to do something, in fact being in a good place, geographically, physically, mentally and emotionally, is a very nice feeling.

But the downside – when the deal fails, or there are ongoing problems that refuse to be resolved despite the efforts made, and the time taken to make them – can make the most idyllic surroundings seem alien and poisonous, especially when you are surrounded by people who neither understand, or want to understand, why you are not having a good time, and are ruining their good time too. Truncated holidays, where companions have insisted on cutting it short because “there doesn’t seem to be much point in being here if your mind is somewhere else” are not uncommon, and I have experienced it more times than I would have liked. I hope it goes without saying that it gave me no satisfaction to ruin other people’s holidays either. Guilt is not a very relaxing feeling.

But we all need a break, we all need to rest. It is one of those annoying paradoxes that the most productive and creative  – and therefore successful – people are those that can take truly refreshing holidays, where they can take their minds off the daily grind, and their daily and professional problems, and totally relax in a fresh environment, and come back inspired and energised to begin the fight again. For me therefore I am constantly torn between the stress of wanting to relax and switch off so I can be refreshed and energised for the fight ahead, and the stress caused by trying to switch off and relax, and being unable to do so because there are things I feel need doing, or because I need to be doing things to keep the business going, and I can’t do it from the beach, mountain or beautiful city where I happen to be.

And then there is the stress of choosing and booking the right holiday that will deal with the on-off lifestyle I have, that will provide the right balance between relaxation and activity that won’t make the phonecall or text when it arrives, as it surely will, so debilitating. The more remote and slow the place, the more disturbing it is. What should I choose? The remote island, or the busy – if picturesque – city? Where working with a laptop, or talking on the phone, will not completely ruin the relaxation and rest so desperately sought? I never get it entirely right.

And then there is sleep itself. Sleep on holiday is precious, and a sure way of building back the reserves of strength and energy, and I would add, clear thinking that the stresses in the months before the holiday starts have severely depleted. I feel that not only am I running on empty, but I am tapping into fundamental stores of energy that will never be able to be replenished.

Human beings need sleep for their health, and sleep deprivation is a sure cause of a lack of energy and therefore productivity. It is also one of the crueller forms of torture. Alcohol can help of course, in relatively small and congenial amounts. Getting wasted, especially as I get older, can initially seem to blow away some of the stresses but it rarely, if ever, leads to a refreshing sleep from which I awake refreshed and renewed. Rather it needs a day, at least, to recover from to get me back in the place where I was when I thought it was a good idea to have that extra nightcap, or order another round of shots.

Humans are not unique in this need for sleep, but they need more than most species. Maybe it’s our brain, or minds, or both that need it. I came across an article in the journal Science describing the sleep patterns of the northern elephant seal. When they are ashore for the mating season, they sleep a lot, hours and hours every day, partly to preserve their energy (they cannot leave the mating grounds otherwise they will miss a potential partner), but also to build up there strength for when they return to sea. When they are at sea, feeding and building themselves up, sometimes for months on end, they have evolved to take advantage of their own physical characteristics and their environment to get the sleep that they need.

When it is time for rest, they drift off, literally, and start sinking into slumber, and into the lower depths of the sea. As they sink from the surface, where they are still half awake, they can be aware of predators – sharks, killer whales – that cruise there. But as they sink lower, they are beyond the reach of potential attacks, and slip into a deeper sleep, the precious REM type that restores brain functionality, and spiral slowly down and down until they are woken up by a lack of oxygen and – it is not clear how they know – an increasing water pressure. This deeper sleep normally lasts around two hours. They then resurface, refreshed by their sleep, literally breaking through the surface of a new day and, taking a deep breath, they carry on.

I find this image of spiralling down into the depths, asleep, very poetic, but there is little room for northern elephant seals in today’s competitive shipbroking market. I wish that I could survive on two hours sleep – with or without alcohol – and be fully functional in the office the following day. But we are humans and need more regular sleep, with or without the sea.

And we also need – without stretching the metaphor too far – the equivalent of hanging around like northern elephant seals on the beach in the mating season. A period of concerted rest, where we can relax and also replenish the lost reserves that being at sea, metaphorically if not physically, depletes.

So what do we need, and how do we achieve it? The answer is, of course, it depends. It varies from person to person, family to family, business to business, as well as the position of responsibility we find ourselves in. But, if we can, should all aim to carve out some space for some serious rest and relaxation to happen. However, many times we are our own worst enemy. We may feel we can’t delegate responsibility too far, we have a fear of missing out, we don’t want to appear to be lazy, we want to prove to ourselves, and to others, that we are indispensable, and better than them. So we stay logged in, tuned in, and never properly switch off. And in the frazzled state of mind we often find ourselves in as we approach our holidays, we can’t even think straight enough to address what we really need, and plan for it properly.

But our minds are ever resourceful, and our memories very selective. If we manage to have a good time, relaxing and happy, even for only a few days during our vacation, it will be those days and times that we will remember with fondness in the future, and want to recreate. It will be those days and times that we will draw on when we are going through dark days, of winter, of life. There is a Greek saying that a friend told me a few of summers ago that stuck in my mind, when she wished me a great holiday “με την ανεμελιά που είχαμε παιδιά” which roughly translates as “with the carefreeness that we had as children.” If you are on holiday, or about to go, I wish you the same. And I hope that you get some of the deep and happy sleep that only exhausted and sun-kissed children after a day in the sea can achieve.

Simon Ward