On annual leave - colleagues messaging

[Bunny2021]

My first AIBU - please be gentle 😂

I’m on annual leave this week as I had holiday days I needed to use up before the end of the month. I haven’t gone away anywhere other than visiting family Monday and Tuesday.

Yesterday my boss sent me a WhatsApp on my personal phone asking about a document that had corrupted and would I be able to go back in to redact the information and resend. He finished the message with “if you can’t, not to worry I will do it tomorrow”. I did it last night.

This morning at 8:30 - so outside of normal working hours - another colleague has messaged (same level as me) asking for a call today to talk him through a contract that could probably wait until Monday. If not, my boss has my notes from when I went on mat leave that covered this contract. This message has really annoyed me. I think because it’s before our usual working day (which starts at 9:00).

YABU - it’s a quick message and they only want to chat for 5 mins.
YANBU - you’re on annual leave and it’s unacceptable to be messaging at 8:30 on your day off.

Unless you’re paid silly money to be available 24/7, mute all work WhatsApps etc on annual leave, weekends and outside work hours. Ignore; don’t even respond to say you’re on leave.

What kind of job do you have?
This would be normal for me/my level of seniority/my profession.
If you're one of the admin team - no, it's not acceptable. Mute all work notifications/numbers.

Is this your normal workplace culture? Seems bizarre to me.

At the very least claim back one half day because you weren’t on leave, you were working from home.

Personally I wouldn’t mind

You clearly do or you wouldn’t be posting

You definitely had the time as you are on here…….

Ignore it

It wouldn't bother me if I wasn't busy anyway. If I couldn't do it I'd just say no.

Not sure what being on here has to do with it? The OP is on annual leave she can be doing what she wants with her time.

i wouldn’t have an issue with first request sounds like a one off. I’d politely Telly the guy who wants a chat that it can wait until your back.

I would do the first one, if it was easy and I had easy access to the document to resend. I wouldn’t do talking through a contract. Generally, no, they shouldn’t contact you unless it was urgent -or if it was something you had forgotten to do -upload a file, for example.

You're on annual leave. Unless it js business critics it's done this week AND you are the only person who can do it, it should wait till next week. There is a time and place for flexibility but neither of these examples would warrant it in my view.

I’m in the same situation, they are short staffed and want me to work my rest days.

my answer was cancel my holiday and let me take a fortnight off later in the year, if not do not harass me!!

Enjoy your holiday

Having the time is totally irrelevant. OP is on leave. If they really need OP's input, they can refund 1/2 day of annual leave.

Of course she has TIME, she’s on holiday! But it’s not time that’s allocated for work. That’s sort of the concept of annual leave…

There are a few colleagues who I'll help while on leave but they agree they'll only contact me if really necessary (and always feel guilty if they do) and they will always reciprocate. Nothing worse than needing a simple answer to keep a large project running smoothly and knowing the wait is a week or more.

Other than these two or three people my OOO is on the minute I finish until the minuet I'm due back.

Individuals choice although, as said, I appreciate the higher you are the less space you have.

Mobile phones mean that people are contactable all the time. Employers take advantage of this. It’s only going to get worse.

Turn off the read receipt ticks on your WhatsApp and ignore the messages, until you're back in work.

Nothing's going to set on fire because you're on annual leave.

Maybe it’s industry specific but I find it incredibly odd when people on mumsnet refuse to talk to their colleagues outside office hours. In the real world, most of us are team players and would be happy to give our colleagues five minutes of our time (as long as they asked politely).

People wouldn’t last five minutes in my profession if they expected work to be a bog standard 9-5 and weren’t prepared to answer the odd text or call on leave or at night.

Working a full day on leave? No. A quick 5 minute phone call to make your colleagues life a bit easier and help work to run more smoothly - totally fine IMO.

You need to set boundaries now or it won't stop.
I'd reply to colleague wanting you to explain a contract with "I'm actually on annual leave this week, happy to go over it when I'm back"
Then make it very clear to everyone else and/or just not reply until you're back.

Are you the PA responsible for typing docs or a solicitor responsible for contracts? If the former, you’re not paid enough to have your holiday disturbed- if the latter, you probably are

It depends if it works both ways. I was working until 10.30 last night and logged on again at 6am this morning to sort something that's broken. I don't get paid overtime, but I do get paid a good wage, and (for me this is the important bit), I can be really flexible with my time, and if I'm not busy I just don't work.

For me it's about flexibility, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours

Ignore them. You shouldn't have done what your boss asked you to do, espeically as they offered to do it themselves. Now I expect they will do this when you are on leave in the future. A simply "sorry, away from my computer today as on leave" is a perfectly acceptable response. So is no response at all.

If she was asked to redact a document she's hardly senior.

Separately, whatever happened to document control/versioning for someone else to manage.

And working on your PTO is different to working longer hours etc. I have become a lot more protective of annual leave as it's there to allow you to switch off from work and unwind. That's completely negated if you are keeping an eye on work.

The way I do it - in a relatively senior position, so have to be contactable in a genuine emergency - is I put in my out of office that I don't have access to emails or messages and to call me in an emergency. It's easy to write a cheeky message/ IM/ email, it's quite another to have to ring someone up, knowing they are on leave, and have to ask them to do something that is a piss take. Miraculously noone really rings me to ask me to do things now.

YANBU.

I ignore messages if I’m on leave or it’s outside my working hours.

At my workplace, there seems to be a thing where it’s easier to interrupt what I’m doing to ask me stupid questions rather than find out for yourself.

My bosses are very much take, take, take, rather than a bit of give and take - they’re quick to jump on me if I answer a private call from the doctors, or answer a quick text from my daughter yet message me at all hours or if I’m on holiday and expect me to reply and help out. They cut my hours, yet seem to expect me to still work my old hours without getting paid for it.

I’ve put my foot down recently. The work WhatsApp group chat goes on mute and stays on mute until I’m back at work.

There are a couple of people here I don’t mind helping out if they are truly stuck - not just can’t be arsed to find out for themselves, but other that that, absolutely not.

Re the redacted document, if it’s stored on a common drive then anyone should have been able to find it and redact it. No need to bother you at all.

Completely inappropriate of your work colleagues and boss.

Annual leave should not be abused by employers.

I would have ignored any work-related messages/calls while on holiday.

If you start to let your boundaries slip then people will continue to take advantage and that will become the norm.

This is also why I never take part in work WhatsApp groups.