re: Getting contacted by work during vacation

No, dumbass. I’m giving real world examples where it’s plausible that someone would need to be called on their vacation.

Id like to know what industry you work in where it’s so black and white and there are layers upon layers of redundancy and expert cross training that there is never a potential that anyone would need to be called to ask a question to at any point.

That company doesn’t exist.


You even hear about it with these anecdotal stories about chemical plants where they have to call the old timer back in to tell them how to fix something because no one else knows how. And these are companies that have procedures books thicker than the encyclopedia Britainca.

I work for a company with a whole 15 employees and we are the largest we’ve ever been. The client managers all do the same job and could fill in for each other, and they answer to a manager that could hop in for them as well.

I work for one very niche side of the company and do not need a full time employee under me doing the same job I do, nor do I have or need a manager. My title is director. There’s not a rank above it for my area. I answer to the owner/CEO, who does not “manage” me day to day.

Learning what I do would require full time shadowing to the tune of like a year, which is a waste of resources. It’s redundant.

Our CEO/owner can hop in if emergencies hit while I’m gone (which happened when I was on my honeymoon), but otherwise I don’t want people messing with my work since it is data sensitive and the wrong move often can’t be undone, so I don’t mind a simple email or whatever while out.

Almost none of it is pressing and they usually just wait anyway. So it’s kinda a non issue. I definitely don’t intentionally ignore email notifications though. Most are just glance and move on.

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What's the OT's take on this? Do you answer emails/texts/calls on vacation?

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What part of "frick all the way off" don't you understand?

I typically take a 2+ week vacation in the summer, and I prep my team before I leave.

*I* will check email 2-3 times during that time, but that's for me, not for work. I don't want to be surprised by whatever shite pops off while I'm out. I'd also like to be at my regular level of 800+ unread emails instead of 1200-1500+.

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Some of y'all must be making phenomenal money to work jobs that no one else can do even in an emergency and that you can't take a vacation.

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literally no one is claiming this in this thread. You aren’t very smart

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Sounds like you need to reevaluate your priorities

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Why? I love what I do, I am very well compensated and have a ton of flexibility.

So what if while I am away I take care of some things here and there? It is my choice. No one suffers.

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Real-world examples I’ve dealt with personally:

- General counsel has inserted himself into a contract negotiation because of certain contentious terms. He goes on vacation in the middle of the negotiation. His subordinates can’t pick up the slack because there might be items they don’t have authority to approve (hence his involvement in the first place) and his manager can’t pick it up because he has no background on the deal. We don’t get two general counsels just so one can take vacation.

- Estimator is working on a bid that’s due next Tuesday but he’s on vacation next week. He says he’s going to get everything finished up Friday before he leaves, but he finishes too late for us to review. When we review Monday we find what appear to be issues or mistakes, but the estimator is already gone on vacation so we are unable to verify. We have other people who can do his job, but in order to properly vet the estimate they would basically have to start from the beginning (and there’s not time to do that).

- Engineer is working on a project for a customer and goes on vacation. We need a key piece of information to keep the project from getting held up, but we don’t know where exactly he saved that information because it’s on his desktop, or in his inbox.

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All three of these are individual frick-ups / lack of ownership. They scream of a shitty culture where people aren't held accountable.

We:

A. wouldn't do this, because we hold each other accountable
B. would think far enough ahead to avoid this and
C. would (gladly) come off of vacation to resolve, if needed (anywhere in the world)

The example way up-thread about the "person needing to go in the platform with a special certification, etc. etc." Did you JUST find out that Larry is the only guy in the company that can go AND he's going to the platform on Tuesday? Did he take the class over the weekend? Or did somebody just not put it in his profile two years ago? Or check his profile when he got scheduled to go out? That example sounds like a frick-up, too.

I'm not fixing your frick-up on my vacation, that's for sure.

After being contacted constantly while away for the weekend I promptly turned in my 2 week notice and retired when I got back to work. It was my weekend to go back home that I got once a month.

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"Out of office. I will return on xxx date. Good day to you sir!"

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If all you are is a lowly employee with no ambition then there is nothing wrong with this. But I know plenty of people who have risen to be multi-millionaires with a different attitude. It really depends on each individual’s values - no one answer that suits everyone.

I personally don’t answer my phone much when on vacation. I may respond to a text but I let folks understand I’m on vacation, especially before I go. I’m in administration now for my fire dept but back when I was a captain I can remember getting lots of calls. Back then I’d answer but now,, if I do we are either gonna fix it or not very quickly. I’ll be honest, I may not even look at my phone or have it on me for several days when on vacation.