Work phone when on Annual Leave

[AndOnAndOn]

Can anyone share their experience/views with me please as they differ wildly in our house......

When on annual leave do you generally read/respond to work emails, What's App, text messages? Do you continue to keep an eye on work related social media, retweet, like posts etc?

Or when you are off you are off? Do you manage to put your out of office on and switch off from work completely?

I appreciate if you have one phone that is sued for both work and social it may be more tricky, how about if you have a separate work phone?

Thanks.

I check once a day because I’m curious as to what’s kicking off in my absence. Much in the same spirit as I might check the neighbourhood watch WhatsApp group. While I’m there I delete irrelevant emails and answer anything that can be done in 5 minutes that will make colleagues’ life easier. Works for me.

I don't think about work from the moment I leave the office to go on holiday until the moment I walk back in.

It all becomes Someone Else's Problem, because when I AM at work, I do expect to cover for colleagues who are away and handle any problems that come in for them. Reciprocal arrangements.

is there no one here who doesn't work all the time whether they are on leave or not?
from the moment they get up until the moment they go to bed.possibly the odd hour out for a tv show.and meals.but otherwise back in the office room.

I used to before I had a colleague who had an accident at work and was off for 6 weeks before a phased return. She had broker her hand so couldn’t do anything. She thought everything would fall apart without her. It didn’t. Now I don’t check email if I can help it - I know that no matter how irreplaceable I think I am, if I had some kind of accident they would have to cope.

DH is a terror for checking his email though and often I am left sitting around waiting while he ‘just quickly checks, don’t want loads of emails when I get back’. He knows it’s unhealthy though so we’ve started doing cruises with lots of sea days on ships that don’t have great internet connectivity. Now he just tells his boss that he won’t be able to get in touch as he’ll be in the ocean with no signal and at best a few hours of dial up speed internet. It’s bliss.

No one covers my role when I'm off. I'm the only person who does what I do. So normally I check daily when I'm on annual leave and deal with the urgent stuff, and set up meetings for when I get back

Same here. The work doesn't go away just because I'm on holiday. It has to be done before I leave or after I get back. I have found that checking emails once a day means much reduced stress levels when I return to work.

kateandme

One of the many things I LOATHE about our internal messenger (Slack), is that one of the statuses is 'commuting' with a little car emoji.

To me, that implies that you need to excuse the fact that you are fucking driving, so not answering messages - it implies that when you're at home, you could be answering messages.

Symptomatic of this idiotic on call culture.

is there no one here who doesn't work all the time whether they are on leave or not?
from the moment they get up until the moment they go to bed.possibly the odd hour out for a tv show.and meals.but otherwise back in the office room

I used to have a job like that. For security reasons, emails could only be accessed on site. Working was effectively restricted to set office hours only. I miss that part of it. My current job has no working hours. We are expected to do what is necessary to get the job done... evenings, weekend, whatever. I do like being able to organise my own time though.

Swings and roundabouts.

I put out of office on and switch phone off so can avoid emails
Text messages and calls are harder as they sync with my own phone but they are not as frequent and I can usually ignore
All my staff team have my personal mobile and would only contact me if they really had to - usually 1-2 times a year and I’ve never minded as it’s always been appropriate
I used to always check messages and emails on a Sunday night after being on leave but then my stress levels increased because of this
My new system is to get up very early on my first day back - head for my local coffee shop around 7 and spend 2-3 hours dealing with all the messages and emails before heading into office

I check once a day because I’m curious as to what’s kicking off in my absence

Me too, and nothing more. But no-one works when they are on leave, and usually not in the evenings or weekends either. It's just not expected unless you are very senior and there is an actual emergency. And clients wanting stuff 'now' for the sake of it, isn't an emergency.

We are expected to put an out of office reply asking people to resend the email to a catch all address if it cannot wait until we are back from leave so someone else can deal with it. Otherwise, it will just sit there until we come back.

Do you continue to keep an eye on work related social media, retweet, like posts etc I don't do that when I am at work. Is that what some people are expected to do . How strange.

He knows it’s unhealthy though so we’ve started doing cruises with lots of sea days on ships that don’t have great internet connectivity. Now he just tells his boss that he won’t be able to get in touch as he’ll be in the ocean with no signal and at best a few hours of dial up speed internet. It’s bliss

You need to get him into scuba diving and do liveaboards. You spend your entire holiday actually underwater or at least in the middle of the sea with hardly any internet access - sometimes it pops up for a bit but is virtually unusable for days at a time.

It's made me really sad how many people continue to work on holidays. This isn't what flexible working is meant to be!

I was fortunate to negotiate term time working hours. Starting very early (DH was able to do school runs) and finishing in time for pick-ups with school holidays off.
I have OOO on email and my PA has access to them. I have agreed to be contacted if she is not able to address issues. Works for me and I'm grateful for my flexible hours

I have my email configured so if I receive an email with escalation in the title from my colleagues it sends a text message to me (using PagerDuty) so I can check it. Then my team have my phone number for emergency use.

I always take my laptop on holiday

I check in on my emails even though someone is covering me. Going away soon and will be taking my work phone (i think, poor wifi where we are going)