Comment by 542458
9 hours ago
I think my POV on this is a bit different than what others are expressing… I don’t mind answering the occasional email while on vacation, but I view it as a fair trade - as long as the company doesn’t mind me handling the occasional personal obligation during work hours I don’t mind handling the occasional work obligation during personal hours. If the company wants to be strict about clock in/out hours or taking PTO for every 30 minute errand or the work trends in a way that routinely exceeds 40 hours per week total then I’ll stop doing work “off the clock”, but so long as they’re willing to be reasonable I’m willing to be reasonable.
The idea with vacation is that you don't think about work. When I start vacation I disable all the channels that people usually use so that no one asks me even by accident. There needs to be a time when you are completely undisturbed and disconnected. If you are disturbed by work you will think about work while you answer and maybe even after that. That's not good.
I also think you should normalize for yourself and your workplace that there are times when you are not there. If only you can answer a question then there needs to be better documentation. See it as a trail run for when you get hit by a bus. If they will struggle without you then that is a problem that needs to be fixed. If you are always reachable these problems will never surface.
> There needs to be a time when you are completely undisturbed and disconnected. If you are disturbed by work you will think about work while you answer and maybe even after that. That's not good.
IMO this is not a universal truth - I’m sure some people need that level of disconnection, but I don't find I'm one of them. I generally like my job, and don't find that forcing myself to disconnect does me any particular mental good. But other people report needing that separation, and that's fine! I don't think there needs to be a one-size-fits-all answer here.
I do agree with your bus factor argument though.
I generally work for small companies, and while I'll do something very similar when taking leave (or just at the weekend) I do also make sure someone has contact details for me in the case of anything that truly can't wait until I get back. My experience of doing this has been that people will be judicious about whether something actually warrants interrupting someone's holiday, and it also results in me being less inclined to check in on email/Slack now and again just in case something is up.
I was the only full time sysadmin of a 20 person company. I went on vacation for three whole weeks. I was half way around the globe and not reachable. The company still existed after I came back. They did have a problem. They tried to reach me. They couldn't. They figured it out by themselves.
I think we believe ourselves to be more irreplaceable than we are. And if you really think you are irreplaceable then the problem is not going on vacation but being irreplaceable. Because then if something were to happen to you they are screwed.
I'm the same.
If I can answer a question with a 30-second response to a Slack message, I will, and I won't mind it as long as it's not frequent. I won't join a call, and I'm only logged into Slack and Outlook on my phone, so if answering requires checking something on Confluence or Jira, I can't help.
Maybe I feel this way because actually being asked something is exceptionally rare. I'll be gone for a week and MAYBE I'll get one message.