to not expect 3 calls from work when I'm on holiday?

[Cersei]

We haven't actually gone away but I don't think that's the point, I have booked holiday from work and if I've been called by 3 different people with 3 different problems for me to sort out it's hardly much of a break

I am the part time manager of a small department in a supermarket, so small that there is no supervisor to assist me. When I go back I shall be asking (again!) if we can have a supervisor. I did have a job share partner doing another 3 days with me but she left last month and won't be replaced until end of July.

I have now turned my home phone and mobile off

YANBU

do they know you arent actually away?

That's awful! Isn't there anyone else in the supermarket who could help them?

DH takes calls from work when he's on holiday, it gives him a superior sense of indispensability

Which is good if lots of people are losing their jobs at the min.

But it's your phone and if it's off, it's off.

Maybe you could call them back if you have five mins and harvest all their questions at once?

I would in future screen your calls, and don't answer any from work. And before your holiday when people ask if you are going away, say I don't know we might go camping/to stay with in laws, etc. Then they won't "expect" you to be around.

And if you have ignored an answerphone message/s and you bump into them/return to work and they say anything about it. Just say - oh did you leave a message, sorry I must have missed that/them. I was so busy having fun with the family I forgot to check my phone.

It doesn't matter if they think/know you are lying, it is just a way to get them not to expect you to sort out problems when you are on holiday without going into a confrontation mode. After all, what can they do? They can't complain that you didn't return calls when you were on holiday!

YANBU. It's totally unreasonable for work not to respect the fact that you are on holiday.

YABU to actually take the calls. You should either ignore therm, or remind people you're on holiday and tell them to either call someone else or wait until you're back. If you let people treat you like a mug, that's what you'll be.

If these were problems from your staff, then you could have appointed someone to be in charge during your absence and explained to the others that this person is empowered to make all decisions. Could the problems have been anticipated before you went, so that you could make sure that people knew what to do in these eventualities?

No idea what to do if it's your boss calling though. I hope this didn't ruin your break.

I used to have this in my job and it was purely down to my team - and boss - being too lazy to think through things themselves. I started doing more detailed handovers and anticipating things that might come up - I also told other relevant colleagues and clients that I would be away and tried to sort things out before I left or manage their expectations that things would be completed on my return.

I work for a law firm and my boss takes calls & emails on hols & expects us to do the same. I refuse to do the same and encourage my team to be more self-sufficient when I'm not there. My holidays are precious time with OH & DC and I would never dream of disturbing someone else on their hols so I expect the same in return. When I started mat leave I said they could call for the first couple of weeks but only one call a day, so they should gather all the questions up to cover off in that one call.

I sound like a tyrant but I found I had to set some ground rules & people seem to respect that.

You don't sound like a tyrant at all. I have found though that you do need to be more assertive in a workplace where people actually encourage other staff to ring them if they have a problemwhen they are on holiday. In some jobs this may be the right thing to do,but the people I have seen do this are not anywhere near indispensable.

I manage a small company and always say that staff can ring me in an emergency, but they can make decisions when I'm not there - I just ask them to talk it through with at least 1 other member of staff first. I have only ever had 2 calls during 9 years - and they were emergencies.