AIBU? Working during annual holiday

[Oaktree1952]

Im a teacher and I’ve been contacted by three parents by email and “caught just to say” in town. I get teachers get really long holidays. I get the expectation that we plan and prepare the classroom during holidays. But should I be replying to parents or not. Do other £40k jobs respond to clients or other members of staff during their annual leave?

No, if it's safeguarding forward it onto the DSL, otherwise add an auto response stating you'll be responding to emails on your inset day before sept start.

I'm assuming it's things that can wait.

Well yes many professional jobs do expect people to be responsive - it’s not just teaching

Can you put a standard response message on your email saying that emails will be dealt with at the start of term? What's your school policy on this? It's good practice for them to have something to give staff some guidelines.

I don’t have my work emails on my phone and when I’m not working I’m not working

this includes my day off in the week as I compress my hours, weekends and any annual leave

I wouldn’t be replying to any emails at all harder If they catch you in town but I’d just say I’m sorry I’m not at work but if you email the office someone will pick this up -
job done.

Sure some jobs expect (unreasonably) that their staff are responsive when they are on holiday. That doesn't mean responsive to a whole group of customers of the business, it would be to colleagues and managers.

Yes quite, it is a hugely common expectation. Doesn't make it right, of course.

With the emails- don't you have a work email that's separate from your personal email?

I work in a profession (not teaching) and don't check my work email when I'm on annual leave.

Bumping into people outside of work just needs a polite response that I'm not at work at present, please contact me when I return.

it's not 40k if you pro rata'd it though is it? It would be 53k if you earned at the same rate but without the holidays. I'm not saying you shouldn't get holidays! Teachers need every bloody minute of them.

But yeah, sorry, in an office job at 53k you should probably not be disturbed on your 2 week annual leave but sometimes you are, a bit. It's no biggie.

Depends on your school’s policy. At my DC school all parents are made aware of what the expectations are in terms of communication with teachers and there are few reminders throughout the school year. If I emailed a teacher during the school holidays (I may have done so once or twice during say Xmas or Easter break), I wouldn’t expect a reply until school starts; it’s more of if I don’t send it now I’ll probably completely forget rather than expecting a swift reply.

Auto reply set up
I am away until X
I will deal with emails wren I return

Lots of jobs do expect you to be responsive to clients/customers too. Albeit probably more senior jobs which are likely to be much better paid than teaching.

I have messages, emails, Facebook notifications, WhatsApp messages and once a particularly determined patient tried FaceTiming me.
I usually reply with a standard response “I’m sorry I don’t have any more appointments available, keep an eye on Facebook, I will post all openings there asap.” I have it as my voicemail, it’s front of my Google page. I have it pinned to the top of my Facebook and it’s my auto-reply response. I cannot do any more to let people know that I absolutely cannot offer them services.
However people are still stupid enough to message. Which drives me crazy.

Yeah, I answer stuff on annual leave. Not expected to but I'm not an arse and if it only takes me a few minutes or so, so be it. I like to keep on top of things.

But surely it's up to you if you check your emails or not? Just don't open them?

When I am properly away, so about 2 weeks, then I don’t check my work email at all.

The rest of the summer I might check once or twice a week but it would be rare for a parent to email that I would need to deal with.

Well until the last couple of weeks then I might get some more

Why do you check them though? What else would you expect to be in your emails that leads you to log on whilst you’re on holiday?

Why are you checking work email if you don’t want to be contacted on holiday? Just set an out of office and leave it at that. If someone approaches you in person explain you can’t deal with their query out of work time/place and direct them to email you.

In answer to your question, yes many jobs do require a level of contact while on leave but it’s for you to manage expectations if you don’t want to do that part of your job while on leave.

Just put an out of office on your emails surely? And if someone approaches you in town politely tell them you’ll deal with their enquiry once school starts again

thanks for your replies. I don’t mind quick replies to colleagues or leadership. I just feel two days into the holidays and parents are already emailing. But I will set my out of office and then pick them up when I can.

Yes, i check things when on holiday - it might only be 5 mins every other day or so. Or if something quite important comes up my team might teams/whatsapp/call me.

I wouldn't be responding immediately unless urgent, I probably would check and deal with things that are very brief if that means someone else can then do whatever they're trying to do.

I think school summer holidays are difficult because they are so long so if someone is looking for information, it's not just a few days, it's 6 weeks.

Maybe it would be a reasonable compromise to set aside 15-30 mind every two weeks and deal with anything you can in that time. Anything complex send a holding response saying some approximation of "really sorry but this is my summer leave and this is a complicated thing so I'll have to respond when I'm back on X date".

And chuck an out of office on for good measure.

It depends on your industry if people will see an out of office and still try to call you on teams. However, it’s rare in most industries that someone would take more than two weeks in one go. People might be allowed a 3 or 4 week holiday but it’s rare and a lot of other management would go on to ensure that could happen. Someone might be expected to monitor emails if they wanted such a big break.

I think with parents, it’s likely that they are doing while they remember. Put your out of office on, it doesn’t mean you have to answer. If someone catches you in town just say sorry, you don’t have any work things with you at the minute can they email it to you and you’ll pick it up in September.

I absolutely do not and am not expected to even think about work when I’m not there. It’s one of the really good things about where I work tbh, when you’re off your time is totally protected and it would be entirely frowned upon to log on to work emails when you’re on annual leave.
Im off sick at the moment (well, I’m off recovering after an operation so not technically poorly), I met with my manager before my planned absence and sent cover details in advance (so we had the opportunity to meet and discuss anything before i left) to my planned cover while I’m off, I put my out of office on and that’s the end of that.

Out of office automatic reply? That’s the normal thing to do when on annual leave regardless of profession.
Specify your return date and supply an emergency contact details if there’s one for your school.

You could include the dsl email in your out of office, would that make you feel more comfortable to then ignore them until you’re back?

Eg for my job the sorts of things that would come to me on holiday, the equivalent might be a parent with an urgent ehcp deadline asking for a specific bit of info to be forwarded on, that really cant wait.

My childs school emailed once during holidays because a member of staff quite unexpectedly died.

My sister (a teacher) tends to pick up stuff when its her pupils exam results.