Roxanne Calder
There’s something uniquely Australian about trying to finish a report while watching the ocean through a holiday rental window. January arrives, half the country disappears, and suddenly, “working from home” becomes “working wherever Wi-Fi sort of works”.
But the problem isn’t Wi-Fi or even “working wherever”. It’s the underestimation of the damage that softened boundaries can do to our reputation and career.
Here are some summer-specific WFH behaviours that might seem harmless in the moment but can severely damage careers:
1. The slow replies. Summer signals a general slowdown. And it’s difficult to go against the grain when the world and your family are on a different treadmill. Leisurely mornings, relaxed days and an all-round chill out.
Not if you are working, though. Your mind can’t be slow, and certainly not your emails or your responses. “I’ll get to it after a swim” becomes “later this afternoon”, which turns into tomorrow, and it all seemed reasonable at the time.
The reputation damage isn’t in the delay alone; it’s the unpredictability. When your communication becomes erratic, your reliability becomes questionable, even if your work is totally fine.
WFH is one of the great freedoms of modern work. Treat it like a privilege, not a loophole.
Referred to as availability bias, where your managers may remember your recent behaviour, not your November excellence.
2. The elastic workday. WFH in summer is an experiment in time elasticity. You start at nine-ish, take a break to put the washing out, answer emails from a café, take a call in the car, finish something later because the day has got away.
It feels like you worked all day … but you didn’t work all day. Parkinson’s law reminds us that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. With long summer days and loose routines, that expansion can easily morph into an entire lifestyle.
And there’s a psychological cost to this constant drifting. Research shows that frequent interruptions and rapid task-switching increase stress, frustration, and cognitive load. Your work and routine don’t need to be rigid. You just need intent and to be present.
3. The working holiday. Your intention is admirable. Appease both boss and family: you’ll work while the family is on “holiday”. The sea glistens, the sun beckons, and your family and friends wave back at you, with beaming sun-kissed smiles, eyes begging you to join, if just for a small break.
It is summer after all. Suddenly, you have a new read on tough psychological working conditions. And so, gradually, it shifts. In America, nearly half of holidaymakers now mix work and leisure. But this pressure to “stay reachable” doesn’t always translate into steady presence.
It often creates the opposite. People log in at odd times, respond in anxious bursts, then vanish again. And it’s that inconsistency that erodes how reliable you appear. Add to the equation the competing priorities of work and family and guilt mixed with resentment are assured outcomes. So much for the serenity.
4. When flexibility turns into fuzziness. “End of day”. “Later this week”. “Should be fine”. “I’ll try to get to it after lunch”. These aren’t timelines; they’re approximations. And approximations force other people to interpret what you mean.
When you leave colleagues guessing, they spend time clarifying, adjusting, or even compensating. Every small uncertainty becomes a tiny withdrawal from your professional credibility. Not because you’re unreliable, but because ambiguity makes people do extra work.
We all overestimate how clear we are in our own communication; intention feels obvious from the inside but can be invisible from the outside.
5. The disappearing act. Cameras stay off. Log-in times become negotiable. Meetings happen in cars, on balconies, or somewhere with suspiciously perfect lighting. While you may be fully focused, it can easily look like disengagement.
And when your presence becomes harder to read, people do what humans always do: they fill in the blanks. The stories they invent are rarely generous. And don’t think your work will speak for itself.
Remote work strips away those necessary, everyday signals: the dropped-in conversation, the visible effort, the simple reassurance of presence. All that’s left is what you choose to reveal. Layered on top of that is proximity bias, the tendency for leaders to favour the people they see and interact with in person.
When you’re remote and over the summer, every signal counts. Remain present and “on” even if half the office is off. Summer makes slipping off the radar incredibly easy. And reputation damage even easier.
So, how do you enjoy summer without sabotaging your career?
Hold your boundaries, even when the season tries to blur them. Behave in ways people can count on. Answer with intention, not accident. And stay visible so no one has to guess where you’ve gone.
WFH is one of the great freedoms of modern work. Treat it like a privilege, not a loophole. Relax, recharge, absolutely. But stay on the record.
Roxanne Calder, author of Earning Power: Breaking Barriers and Building Wealth for Women (Wiley $34.95), is a career strategist and the founder and managing director of EST10 – one of Sydney’s most successful recruitment agencies.
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