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.
In Germany, if you are on vacation, you are simply not available. You are dead to the world until you return. Emails do not get read, and devices get left at the office.
Another neat thing is that if you get sick on vacation, you get your vacation days back, because vacation days are for resting and recovering.
It's funny because that's kind of the definition of a vacation in my book. I find it weird that some places in the world handle it differently.
Note that it's also much better for the company in the long run: It's a test of resilience and redundany, the famous bus factor. It simulates what happens if someone is not available, and forces the organization around to have a backup plan. Having those is important for cases where employees leave the company or team (switching jobs/teams, accidents, sickness, parental leave, death, burnout, layoffs etc.). It's mind-boggling how many leads at various levels just don't understand that.
The thinking was that if you were cooking the books of doing some dodgy dealing on the side it would come to light without you there to actively 'manage' it.
This year I used my vacation time well and I already had 3 weeks off while I still have almost 4 weeks left.
I'd also add that the culture allows and encourages sick days. The average is 15 sick days per year IIRC.
Now I wonder if I could help the immigrants in my area (I'm in Hesse/Hessen), thanks for the inspiration too.
In New Zealand we get a minimum of 10 sick working days per year but some companies offer more and allow unused sick leave to accumulate.
Many countries have this system and the usual effect is that the duration people are sick for is magically never less than 2 days. It's dumb policy.
And there's an unlimited number of sick days. As long as you have a doctor's note, you still get paid, up to some ridiculous limit at which you might have to get government support instead.
15 is the average. I use it to reassure people that it's okay to take sick days, and not one of those rights that no one dares to use.
Usually, employers ask for a doctors' note after 3 consecutive sick days, but the reason for the sickness remains hidden from the employer. The note just gives a time range, nothing more.
I remember years ago needing urgent support for some bespoke European hardware we were developing software for. When we called support, we were greeted with a phone message stating the company was closed for the entire month due to vacation. This was not a one-man operation; the whole office closed for a summer holiday. We thought it was a joke.
Needless to say we started to look for a new vendor shortly thereafter...
I know a handful of companies with a week of mandatory Christmas vacation as well (but there's typically not too many working days between Christmas and New Years' either way).
I don't know if this work would have been offered to staff who turned it down, or if they preferred to have their staff on holiday at the same time.
Many companies force staff to take vacation days during this time, and there are four (yes four!) public holidays during this period.
Music to the ears of a workaholic :)
Seriously, that'd be nice if everyone would do this (and I do it now, very strictly) but I also know how easy for one to start blurring the lines between work and personal lives.
I used to have a desktop that I could VPN+RDC into from my personal laptop or desktop to work away from the office¹. I've now got a laptop, that refuses to let me authenticate remotely and they have no interest in fixing that as there are other priorities, so I simply can't work if I don't have that laptop with me and I'm not carting it around when I'm already carting my own around (and if I'm not carrying my own, it is because it isn't a suitable situation to be bringing any laptop).
Not a workaholic, I don't think, but a 24/7 stress monkey when I think that I could be helping. Simply not being able to work away from the office actually helps with that: if there is literally nothing I can do, especially given it is work that has made that impossible, I don't stress the same way.
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[1] other than the VPN connector and the MFA doo-hicky on an old² phone, nothing work related, even Teams, even email, ever touches my personal devices
[2] a small old thing, factory reset with a dummy google account and just the MFA apps installed
I er... think you might be a workaholic.
But I'm glad for you that your current setup is helping :)
Specifically, if your job offers (a) to pay for your personal phone line, or (b) a work mobile phone, choose (b).
We have the choice at $WORK, and many teammates chose (a) as it allows them to save some money each month on their phone bill, but now you're basically constantly tethered.
Work during work time, don't work during not-work time. Good practices mean that everyone is important, but nobody is irreplaceable, the team and the work will move along a little slower, but that's fine.
"If I see you log on, I'll disable your account."
Some people are just workaholics and need interventions to actually take a proper holiday.
Personally I’m sure I’d forget to sign out of something.
The only people who should suffer this much are the true busines owners.
Real engineers think about handling things when stuff goes wrong, not "everything will be on the happy path forever".
Yes, there are constraints, but to me this sounds like an unacceptable level of exposure.
My manager doesn't stop overworking. When told on peer performance review that we have people who are consistently overwork because they are swamped, he played it down.
But hey, at least he doesn't encourage overworking either.
Seems like a lot of extra work, just to go on vacation :)
I would suggest another approach. Automate your work, that you can work from your phone. I go on multi day hiking trips, or a week long family beach holidays, without taking PTO...
Edit: I do not get negative reactions. Big part of my work is to monitor system, and answer questions. I spend less time on my phone than most social app users! I still do heavy coding in office a few times a month. And I am self employed for nit pickers.
Work does not have to be sufering, you can enjoy it!
>> Signed: Former workaholic.
> Seems like a lot of extra work, just to go on vacation :)
That's the point, this person and plenty others, are NOT able to "just" go and disconnect. If you can do that, wonderful for you, but please don't assume others are like you precisely when they are humble enough to clarify that they do have a problem and try to help others to overcome it.
What I was trying to highlight was that HOW depends on whom you are talking to. Here they just mentioned a deep behavior problem. Saying "just" or "simply" or "should" or "ought to" or anything implying it's really not that hard is probably not going to be encouraging to them.
If that person doesn't have the mental strength to do any action on their own, I totally agree that they probably need therapy first.
Truly disconnecting from our work is necessary for our mental health. When I'm on vacation, I want to be on vacation, which means not working.
Again, maybe you don't want to actually fully be on vacation from work. I guess that's fine; you do you. But I don't think that's healthy for most people, and regardless of health, many people do just want to completely disconnect from work for some number of days.
That's going to work in some situations, but it's not broadly applicable for many reasons. In particular it's way more work than the act of backing up 2FA and logging out of everything. So yeah, it makes a lot of sense for people to think that's not good advice.
Much better than 2 hour daily unpaid commute at old job.