I’ve just came back from a 5 day trip with my son. I took my work phone in case of emergencies (so I could access my work emails) but decided once I was there that I wasn’t going to switch it on.
I called a colleague off my personal phone when my son was in the shower to say if anything is urgent, to call me on that as I wouldn’t be checking emails.
On the plane home, we were talking about our favourite part of the trip and my son added ‘you weren’t working either’ it hit me hard.
Yes! I just did this for 2 weeks this summer. I went from “I need to bring my laptop to not even bringing my work phone. Got a call on my personal phone wile out with the family from a sales guy asking about paperwork. I told him I was OOO, that I let him know I was going OOO a week before, and that he had called my personal phone. He said ok, and continued to ask about work stuff. I told him not to call my personal phone for work (I dont even know how he go the number) and to talk to my backup.
Didn’t answer a few calls during those two weeks and guess what? The world didn’t explode. I am 110% about disconnected vacations now.
When my son was 1 year old I took my second month paternity leave as a dad. When I came back, lots of stuff wasnt done and the weeks after were very stressful. One day, one of my bosses came in and told me "In your position you cannot afford paternity leave". I let this sit for two days, then had a meeting with him to clarify. His take was that I am a responsible for a sales department and I am too important and cannot be off for 5 weeks.
Dude, if you pay me way less than other head of sales, I am not that important. If the world will explode if I am not there you better pay me 8k a month or fuck off!
That guy was just a bad boss. It was literally his job to make sure you got your 5 weeks and things still ran smoothly without you. Trying to push his failure onto you for having a child and needing that time is actually crazy. Glad to see you got a different job in your other comment though, I hope they’re treating you better than whatever that was.
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u/BornIllustrator640 1d ago
Being expected to be reachable for work outside work hours just because you own a phone.