How many of you go without checking work email at all during vacations? I usually check it once every couple of days to clear some things out. In June, for the first time ever, I decided I wasn't going to check it at all. I lasted until Thursday of my vacation week and then checked it. Bad idea as it included an email with some moderately disappointing news. Prior to that, not checking it was liberating and I had stopped thinking about work entirely. I will be on vacation next week, and I am removing the email app from my phone's home screen. I am going to make it for my whole vacation this time. The downside is that I will surely have 100+ emails to deal with when I get back, but I think it's worth it.
if you can pull it off though, do it.
I can and will. I was really just curious what others experiences have been. I had already made up my mind before starting the thread. I am not the least bit surprised that the responses cover the whole range.
As the CFO succinctly put it at a previous company when a key employee left, "well, you know what they say, cemeteries are full of 'irreplaceable' people."
It stayed with me. My time with my kids matters; nothing else comes close.
I don't disagree in general AP, but in my current role, one email will undoubtedly lead me down a wormhole of calls/emails/false urgency. I'll spare you the details. I certainly don't mean to speak generally, I just meant to speak for me. My apologies if I came across as prescribing advice /judgement for anyone other than me. This is something I struggle with, so I offered up my own conclusion as it may possibly help someone else.
I am sure it's an issue in some places. Fortunately, nobody has to (or can) do any of my work when I am out, and I don't have to worry about job security.
The only time I felt forced to check emails on vacation was when I was job hunting. I will check in on Slack when I'm out, but mostly to participate in the BS/fun rooms we have at work. I've got to keep up with the latest news posted in #pokemon.
Do the same with your voicemail at work and you're all set!
Wow, technology allows for that?! Can you give us instructions on using a faucet next?
I dropped all social media last October. I actually deleted my facebook account. It was weird for a couple of weeks. Now I don't miss it at all and never even think about it.
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Now I bust my ass before and after vacation but I completely unplug and I love it - I try to avoid checking my phone period work, news social media
I dropped all social media last October. I actually deleted my facebook account. It was weird for a couple of weeks. Now I don't miss it at all and never even think about it.
I meant general social media that doesn't have a clear focus (specifically facebook). I would never want to stop talking about the giants or interacting with people on certain music sites.
I'm senior management in my office (mid-size architectural firm) and I deal with clients a lot. Most of them don't expect a response in 30 minutes, but I'd rather either respond to major issues myself later in the day or delegate to someone who can, in the office. I don't look at checking my email for 15-20 minutes a day as a huge inconvenience on vacation - especially if I'm traveling domestically and have my cell phone anyway. We also have a policy where there's always someone else from the office copied on every email, so if I'm away - and my client / engineer / contractor, etc. emails me, there SHOULD be someone in the office to deal with it.. although that's not always the case, which is why i check it. But that's just my preference.
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when you receive 60 to 100 emails daily its hard to ignore, much less relax
Really?
So if you dropped dead in the next 2 minutes the world would come to an end?
I think not.
It is way too stressful to come back and have to wade through several hundred emails and pretty much lose another work day.
It would appear that there are a lot of anti union, pro right to work people on here.
People firing people because they won't do work for free?
I thought that went out the window a century ago.
That has got to break a few federal labor laws.
An agreement with management to work one day for free every week you are on vacation? (One hour a day every morning to check Emails).
Who the hell in their right mind negotiates a contract like that?
What is the difference between working in a factory for 12 hours a day with no overtime and bringing the factory with you in the form of mobile devices?
The only difference is the scenery changes.
How am I wrong to assume labor rights are receding in this country by reading this thread?
As I said, just a different angle.
It would appear that there are a lot of anti union, pro right to work people on here.
People firing people because they won't do work for free?
I thought that went out the window a century ago.
That has got to break a few federal labor laws.
An agreement with management to work one day for free every week you are on vacation? (One hour a day every morning to check Emails).
Who the hell in their right mind negotiates a contract like that?
What is the difference between working in a factory for 12 hours a day with no overtime and bringing the factory with you in the form of mobile devices?
The only difference is the scenery changes.
How am I wrong to assume labor rights are receding in this country by reading this thread?
As I said, just a different angle.
How much time at work is being spent doing things like reading/posting on BBI? Looking at e-mails for a little bit while on vacation could just be looked at as making up some of that time, no?
If I start taking the stance that when I'm on vacation Im shut off, then my boss could take the stance that I need to be at a desk from 8-5. I have to take 1 hour lunches, and I need to check in whenever I leave my work area.
I've chosen to work for companies who value a balance between work and personal time and in turn, I respect that by making myself available. I don't look at checking emails while the rest of my family is sleeping as a hardship, just like if I watch a late-night game during vacation while the rest of the family has gone to bed I don't look at it as a slap. I'm not pulling the laptop out on the beach or at dinners and it is a hell of a lot more relaxing to know I'm not getting blindsided with a wall of shit by being offline for an entire week.
If you can be surfing the net while on work time, you definitely don't have enough pressing work to do.
Which kind of negates the idea that you have to work without getting paid. No?
How does an argument morph from labor rights to not having enough pressing work to do, and what does the amount of "pressing work" have to do with anything in the first place?
If I start taking the stance that when I'm on vacation Im shut off, then my boss could take the stance that I need to be at a desk from 8-5. I have to take 1 hour lunches, and I need to check in whenever I leave my work area.
I've chosen to work for companies who value a balance between work and personal time and in turn, I respect that by making myself available. I don't look at checking emails while the rest of my family is sleeping as a hardship, just like if I watch a late-night game during vacation while the rest of the family has gone to bed I don't look at it as a slap. I'm not pulling the laptop out on the beach or at dinners and it is a hell of a lot more relaxing to know I'm not getting blindsided with a wall of shit by being offline for an entire week.
Fatman
Now that is a reasonable "contract" that works out for both.
You are not being expected to work without some sort of compensation in return.
In fact, I would say it works out in your favor.
My company promotes health/wellness and when you are off, you are OFF. Outside of our SVP's and executives, the rest of us are urged to take all of our time off (which is thankfully a ton) and aren't required to check in while out. We have a good out of office system to make sure nothing slips through the cracks while we are out as well.
It would appear that there are a lot of anti union, pro right to work people on here.
People firing people because they won't do work for free?
I thought that went out the window a century ago.
That has got to break a few federal labor laws.
An agreement with management to work one day for free every week you are on vacation? (One hour a day every morning to check Emails).
Who the hell in their right mind negotiates a contract like that?
What is the difference between working in a factory for 12 hours a day with no overtime and bringing the factory with you in the form of mobile devices?
The only difference is the scenery changes.
How am I wrong to assume labor rights are receding in this country by reading this thread?
As I said, just a different angle.
For most professionals/white collar workers there is no FLSA, and I don't want to make it sound like a complaint.
But there is no 40 hour work week for most exempt jobs (sales) and there is no union. And it's better that way for everyone.
My wife freaked out about the work thing while she was pregnant but finally caved once we had the baby and decided she wasn't going to check email at all while out for 12 weeks. She prepped her team, delegated, and took her well earned time off. If she can do that for 3 months then I see no reason why I can't do that for a 1 week vacation.
How does an argument morph from labor rights to not having enough pressing work to do, and what does the amount of "pressing work" have to do with anything in the first place?
The point is that if you don't have enough work to keep you busy at work, Why would you need to be available to not be busy when off of work?
I mean there isn't much wiggle room for a guy on the production line. He's doing a repeatable task over and over and his only time away from that comes in the form of breaks. For my position, a lot of it is based on overseeing projects, directing/managing others on critical decisions, heading up meetings and interacting with customers. There's actually quite a bit of down time.
Checking email or even having the occasional phone conference on vacation is simply a way of maintaining the work schedule so that I'm not behind when I return.
When I made upper middle mgmt in the Fd, we could go union whenever we wanted.
Do to basically an arrangement like Fatman has, that rank still to this day is not union. The benefits outweighed having to come it for a meeting 1 or 2 times a month on a day off. And then only if it didn't fall on your shift.
Labor and administrative law was a graduate class.
Of course arguing one side, then the other were good exercises.
Having been involved in labor/management negotiations for almost 2 decades before the course, I excelled in whatever side I was on when negotiation exercises were held. It was like leading lambs to slaughter.
When I made upper middle mgmt in the Fd, we could go union whenever we wanted.
Do to basically an arrangement like Fatman has, that rank still to this day is not union. The benefits outweighed having to come it for a meeting 1 or 2 times a month on a day off. And then only if it didn't fall on your shift.
Labor and administrative law was a graduate class.
Of course arguing one side, then the other were good exercises.
Having been involved in labor/management negotiations for almost 2 decades before the course, I excelled in whatever side I was on when negotiation exercises were held. It was like leading lambs to slaughter.
I'm speaking specifically of non-labor, non-municipal, public service jobs - aka corporate America.
there are very few unions and very little care paid to work/life balance. it's all right to work and no there is nothing federally preventing anyone from firing you for any reason as long as its not discrimination (which is very hard to prove).
People make choices about both survival and comfort, first you want to survive (and feed your family) next you want it to be as comfortable for you doing so, so you make choices.
Besides, I love my family more than anything else in this world, but I strongly feel like we don't need to spend every waking minute together, even on a family vacation. Most of the time depending on what we do and where we are - for example if we're at the beach renting a house on the Cape, at night after dinner I'll pour a glass of scotch, maybe fire up the computer, respond to any emails I need to, check up on the latest world events, and shut it down.
seems perfectly normal and acceptable to me, and expected.
Did so from a bar in the middle of a pool in Puerto Rico.
Our generation often has the luxury of working from home when we need to, but we also often have the burden of being on-call 24/7 - 365. It's a very new and weird dynamic.
For the most part, yes, you need to set up some boundaries. Perhaps tell them that you will check in once every 3 days in case of an emergency or something, but for the most part, you should enjoy your vacation and be off the grid.
There will always be things that come up that can be handled with 10 mins of shooting off an email, a quick call to the store, etc. Checking in, every now an then allows me to fix a small issue instead of coming back to a bigger one next week.
It actually allows me to enjoy my vacation more.
It would appear that there are a lot of anti union, pro right to work people on here.
People firing people because they won't do work for free?
I thought that went out the window a century ago.
That has got to break a few federal labor laws.
An agreement with management to work one day for free every week you are on vacation? (One hour a day every morning to check Emails).
Who the hell in their right mind negotiates a contract like that?
What is the difference between working in a factory for 12 hours a day with no overtime and bringing the factory with you in the form of mobile devices?
The only difference is the scenery changes.
How am I wrong to assume labor rights are receding in this country by reading this thread?
As I said, just a different angle.
ctc, most of us don't work union jobs and don't want to. And business goes on whether you are on vacation or not. Unless it's an official holiday, clients are working and that means you are working. I don't think there is any right not to have to check email on vacation or time off. This isn't France, for heaven's sake.
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think I see a point there.
How does an argument morph from labor rights to not having enough pressing work to do, and what does the amount of "pressing work" have to do with anything in the first place?
The point is that if you don't have enough work to keep you busy at work, Why would you need to be available to not be busy when off of work?
Because we are not seamstresses in a sweatshop. Stuff comes up at the last minute all the time. Outside occurrences effect our day. Clients have last minute requests. Shit happens.
Exactly! I like deleting the junk before I get back and the few minutes a day it takes to do it is worthwhile to me. I also occasionally get personal email at work and might want to see one of those.
With technology advances, there's a good chance that as you are "relaxing", you are also taking selfies, Facebooking, texting and sending personal email, all while standing in front of the Hoover Dam or another landmark. Or maybe instead of reading a book at the beach, you're reading the Kindle or on social media.
Tying some work into that doesn't seem so onerous anymore. And I'm still not really sure what the point was above in regards to unions and negotiating contracts with your employer. It isn't the 40's anymore.
if you don't reply in 5 minutes or worse they get your out of office message they email your boss who then has to find someone else to help and it just creates this enormous pile of shit attached to your name. God forbid your boss is out too and the shit reaches your bosses boss, that's never good and even though companies tout a "work life balance" they don't mean it or care about it, especially the higher up you get on the org chart.
So reality is no, you really can't take a work free vacation, if you're in some hugely unimportant technology related fields.
But...once you've become seasoned at your job, you find ways to respond subtly to make it seem like you care and are "working on something" but you're on the golf course or at Disney, or deep sea fishing, etc. and truthfully don't give a shit about the problem this person has but you prefer to not get hassled about it.
it's part art, part science, but it really helps keep the shit off your back.
This is like a classic Greg Giraldo rant. Bravo, sir...
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because due to modern accessibility people expect an immediate response to everything and feel like their unimportant bullshit is the most important thing to mankind.
if you don't reply in 5 minutes or worse they get your out of office message they email your boss who then has to find someone else to help and it just creates this enormous pile of shit attached to your name. God forbid your boss is out too and the shit reaches your bosses boss, that's never good and even though companies tout a "work life balance" they don't mean it or care about it, especially the higher up you get on the org chart.
So reality is no, you really can't take a work free vacation, if you're in some hugely unimportant technology related fields.
But...once you've become seasoned at your job, you find ways to respond subtly to make it seem like you care and are "working on something" but you're on the golf course or at Disney, or deep sea fishing, etc. and truthfully don't give a shit about the problem this person has but you prefer to not get hassled about it.
it's part art, part science, but it really helps keep the shit off your back.
This is like a classic Greg Giraldo rant. Bravo, sir...
He was kind of a hero of mine.