Post by @spudooli@mastodon.nz

I was just putting out our wheelie bins at the same time as our neighbour, who just had a new baby last week. He was telling me that he gets 5 and a half months paternity leave, on full pay, so is basically not working again until, I don't know, next year. some time.

Firstly, I don't know who wants to be near a new born baby for so long. I'm pretty sure that's why we invented work in the first place.

And secondly, I've just had 3 days where I haven't worked at all, not one minute, still haven't even looked at my email and I've got the shakes just thinking about what's waiting for me tomorrow.

0 Boosts

0 Likes

Joshua Leung

@aligorith@mastodon.nz 51 min. ago

@spudooli
Last time I went away on leave for a few days - DESPITE telling everyone I was gonna be away and wouldn't be touching my email, and then following through on it too - the backlog I returned to was epic...

Somehow I get more every time I need to be very AFK, whereas on days when I'm stumped on a boring problem (and getting very bored + frustrated), NOTHING comes in for days! 🤪

Zeborah

@zeborah@mastodon.nz 45 min. ago

@aligorith @spudooli Being away for a day or three is rough because people keep sending you all the emails thinking you'll deal with it when you get back.

But if you're away for a month then either:
a) they don't send it to you because they need it done before you'll get back;
b) they send it to you but then something makes it redundant by the time you get back; or
c) they send it to you and it's waiting when you get back but whatever, if it's waited for a month already it can wait for a few weeks more

And if you're away for many months on parental leave then there's a good possibility that your workplace hires someone to backfill for you and you don't need to worry about the stuff at all. Or if they don't, see (c) above.

Joshua Leung

@aligorith@mastodon.nz 40 min. ago

@zeborah @spudooli
Yep, greater than 2 ish weeks, contingencies come into place and arrangements are made to get other folks to cover. Then actually the email volume drops off!

(Not that I've tried personally ever... I can never collect enough leave to do so, and then cannot replenish it fast enough out the other end to dare running out completely)

Discussion

Discussion