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For the people here who want to do the same when they are vacation (be completely detached from work): Make it impossible for you to work! Leave your work devic

• donw 4mo ago
  As a manager, I will quite literally ding people for working when they are supposed to be off. 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.
  • gertrunde 4mo ago
    Quote from my partner's manager before a vacation: "If I see you log on, I'll disable your account."
    • nottorp 4mo ago
      Humm he means figure out everything you’re signed in to before going on vacation and log off? Personally I’m sure I’d forget to sign out of something.
      • OoooooooO 4mo ago
        Probably more Teams autostart and suddenly you appear in the online list when you are officially on vacation.
      • orphea 4mo ago
        No, they don't mean "you should log off everywhere" literally; rather, "don't open Teams/Slack/${our_corporate_chat_software}".
        • nottorp 4mo ago
          Do these things even close on mobile? I'm pretty sure I'm always on on everything. I'm good at ignoring them though.
    • sensanaty 4mo ago
      I had a colleague at my previous company where we had to log her out of everything and ask IT to keep her logged out until their vacation was done every single time. Her water broke during her pregnancy leave and she still replied to someone asking her a question in Slack near real-time, after which we made her uninstall Slack from her phone altogether lol Some people are just workaholics and need interventions to actually take a proper holiday.
  • xeonmc 4mo ago
    extremely relevant recent Kai Lentit skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E7kBOH9owI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E7kBOH9owI
  • sevenzero 4mo ago
    Being the only dev in a startup since 2 years without a single day off where I wasn't messaged by my employer I want this. At least I'll have a 3 week out of country trip where I do not bring my laptop later this year...
    • donw 4mo ago
      Honestly, that is just bad management. It can make sense if it's your company, but even then, the risk profile is just off the charts. What happens if your only developer leaves or gets sick? 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.
    • vkazanov 4mo ago
      You should really consider another place to work at, unless you own a massive, measurable chunk of the company in a legally binding way. The only people who should suffer this much are the true busines owners.
      • sevenzero 4mo ago
        I don't, but I enjoy a lot of perks that I would not get anywhere else. Thats why I stay. Basically work when I want, where I want. 100% remote if I choose to do so. Very flexible days off (maybe that's also why I am contacted a lot during those days). Almost no meetings, and relatively good pay.
        • ffaccount2 4mo ago
          >Very flexible days off (maybe that's also why I am contacted a lot during those days). But... That's not how days off work.
    • GoblinSlayer 4mo ago
      That's exploitation, no? You're just scammed into it, because you let it slide.
  • orphea 4mo ago
    You're a good person. 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.
• throw93033 4mo ago
  > Log out of all accounts, remove 2FA keys after backing them up on paper 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!
  • ro_sharp 4mo ago
    This is the ideal, but in practice you need to own the business to live this way..
    • sayamqazi 4mo ago
      Also candy is enjoyable but 24/7 sucking on it is not.
      • throw93033 4mo ago
        Imagine some people sleep at work... I get paid for being available, not LARPing at desk! Much better than 2 hour daily unpaid commute at old job.
      • missingdays 4mo ago
        Living your life = sucking on candy?
  • Dylan16807 4mo ago
    You're basically saying to get a different job. 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.
  • kelnos 4mo ago
• nicbou 4mo ago
  One of the reasons I left North America for Europe is that such things are normalised. The cultural difference is staggering. 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.
  • fender256 4mo ago
    Thanks for the reminder that this shouldn't be taken for granted. I am a German and sometimes this privilege feels so normal that it's unthinkable that it could be different elsewhere in the world.
    • nicbou 4mo ago
      I help immigrants integrate for a living. Germany can be a frustrating country, but this is one of its best redeeming qualities. I'd also add that the culture allows and encourages sick days. The average is 15 sick days per year IIRC.
      • deleted 4mo ago
        [deleted]
      • patates 4mo ago
        Totally off-topic, but I read your profile to learn about this: https://allaboutberlin.com https://allaboutberlin.com - you do awesome work, thank you! Now I wonder if I could help the immigrants in my area (I'm in Hesse/Hessen), thanks for the inspiration too.
      • teruakohatu 4mo ago
        The average number of sick days used is 15 or the number of days offered? 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.
• dspillett 4mo ago
  My company have accidentally forced this on me, and it is great. 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. -------- [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
  • thih9 4mo ago
    I now want to seek an on site role and request a desktop computer.
  • dust-jacket 4mo ago
    > Not a workaholic, I don't think, but a 24/7 stress monkey when I think that I could be helping I er... think you might be a workaholic. But I'm glad for you that your current setup is helping :)
    • dspillett 4mo ago
      Does it count as being a workaholic when work is just one place it manifests? I class it more “being-useful-aholic”!
• pjmlp 4mo ago
  Easy, that has always been my whole European life, want to reach me on vacations, pay for it.
• davidgerard 4mo ago
  Kai Lentit just dropped a video on precisely this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E7kBOH9owI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E7kBOH9owI
• dminik 4mo ago
  This seems like a lot of extra work. If at all possible, just keep your work stuff on your work laptop/computer. And then keep that at home/at work. No need to sign in and out of 20 different accounts.
  • patates 4mo ago
    > This seems like a lot of extra work 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.
• throw0101a 4mo ago
  > Leave your work devices behind! 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.
• 542458 4mo 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.
  • BadBadJellyBean 4mo ago
    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.
    • jon-wood 4mo ago
      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.
      • BadBadJellyBean 4mo ago
        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.
• coldpie 4mo ago
  This is one of the reasons I work in an office every single day. I leave my work laptop there. I don't have any work software on any of my personal devices, including my phone. If I had the ability to check in on work things while out of the office, I probably would, so I make it impossible.
  • nunez 4mo ago
    This is exactly the move. Work and life should be separate. No work stuff on your personal devices; no personal stuff on your work devices. This way, you can be your best self in both worlds.
• cmxch 4mo ago
  Or maybe don’t have devices doing double duty such that 2FA and work devices can be partitioned out from any incidental personal use. That way, even if you have one half of it, you still don’t have enough to attempt work.
• oasisbob 4mo ago
  Lock-out vacations were one of my favorite things about being at a bank. Auditors cared about the ability for employees to keep a thumb on the scale, so it was a policy requirement that all workers with a certain amount of access needed to take an uninterrupted vacation of N days, with login ability disabled. Fantastic tool for shaking out hidden bus factors.