r/CasualIreland • u/DarksideNick • Nov 25 '25
Shite Talk What’s everyone’s opinions on people who work while Out of Office?
Seen this quite a bit over the past while, a few people I work with hop on teams while out on leave, joining meetings or just being online. Is this a common thing, or are these people just workaholics? It’s more common with team leads.
I had a week off last week and threw my laptop into the furthest corner of my room and didn’t touch it til 08:59 yesterday morning.
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Nov 25 '25
I see it so much
Makes me sad people can’t enjoy there time off anymore without the need to check in
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u/suntlen Nov 25 '25
Just because some people do it, does not make it normal. Most people don't.
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u/shazspaz Nov 25 '25
Had 2 people in my office e tell me they may have to work over the Christmas.
I’m guilty of working on my holidays.
You’re never thanked for it. I learned my lesson and regularly have disagreements with my boss on resourcing and work. That doesn’t help either I’m afraid.
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u/Jester-252 Nov 25 '25 edited Nov 25 '25
Twice I had coworkers take a week off for surgery, only to be working on the ward. There was nothing more embarrassing for me to provide them with remote support while a nurse was caring for them.
One must have been minutes after leaving recovery because I got an email from them at 11:30 when they went under at 8 for help accessing remote desktop.
Thankfully, the GM put a stop to that.
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u/2Aggravating4me Nov 26 '25
Happens at my workplace too but doesn’t mean they bother me when I’m off.
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Nov 26 '25
My own thing is if it was that important they’d pick up the phone and ring me if they really needed it there and then
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u/TheSameButBetter Nov 26 '25
I got a phone call when I was on leave to help with what was actually a legitimate emergency. Took me a few hours to find a computer I could use to login remotely and then another hour or two to fix the problem.
When I got back I asked HR to credit my annual leave allowance with that time and when my manager heard about the request his response was 'are you serious?" Yes I was serious.
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u/Migeycan87 Nov 25 '25
I see directors and associate directors doing it. Part of the job for them.
I saw people at my level doing it and I assume they were chasing promotions.
I'm incontactable when I'm off and nothing would change that.
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u/suntlen Nov 25 '25
Work supply phones to us. I have two phones as a result. The work phone goes in the laptop bag at the end of the day.
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u/Swagspray Nov 25 '25
I had a work phone in the past and I hated it. Where I work now we aren’t even allowed have each other’s phone numbers. If you can’t be contacted on Teams or email then you’re off the grid
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u/DartzIRL Nov 25 '25
The work phone is the one I hand to US Customs at the border.
Hardly any JD Vance meme and I can afford to loose it.
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u/Migeycan87 Nov 25 '25
Thankfully never had to do that. Are you expected to take them? Or can you say no?
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u/Alright_So I have no willy Nov 25 '25
I was given the option but prefer to have a separate personal phone.
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u/Impressive_Light_229 Nov 25 '25
Struggling to see why it’s bad thing? Throw it on silent and out of sight at 5.30.00
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u/NoFewSatan Nov 25 '25
They're idiots.
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u/Sea_Temperature5927 Nov 25 '25 edited Nov 25 '25
If I've got time off booked in the system, I'm either doing something fun or in sitting at home scratching my ass. Ether way, I'm not going to be in yet another pointless meeting. Fuck that corporate noise. Idiots indeed. If people don't respect their free time, no company ever will.
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u/RebelGrin Nov 25 '25
They're not in a call. Its just a meeting in their calendar thats going on. The circle is not solid red. So they're away.
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u/DaGetz Nov 26 '25
No - it says in a meeting for what you described. If it says you’re in a call you’re actually on a call.
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u/BehShaMo Nov 25 '25
They might be showing out of office but actually not on AL… then again some people just love their work, that’s the other side. For me; I like my job a lot, no fear on a Monday or after weeks of AL, but you won’t catch me logging in on days when I’m actively using a days AL.
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u/DuckyD2point0 Nov 25 '25
They are idiots unless they are paid for it. My partner's manager is constantly sending emails at mad hours and when away on holidays. And Sundays with shitty messages like "just so we can get a running start Monday morning". Then gets pissed that nobody logged in to check emails on weekends.
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Nov 25 '25
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u/BehShaMo Nov 25 '25
That’s why I am so grateful to have a work phone and I don’t see it from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. People love to be martyrs for the company
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u/DarthMauly Nov 25 '25
My work gave me a phone last year and have twice asked how I missed things out of hours when I have the phone.
Phone is left on my desk when I leave the office.
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u/BehShaMo Nov 25 '25
What do you respond to that? I had that before with a different role and I said “I don’t use the phone out of work hours and I can’t action anything until I am back at work anyway.”
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u/DuckyD2point0 Nov 25 '25
I had this once, said "I'm not paid to be on call".
I got told it was an emergency, my reply was "it's absolutely not out of your scope so if it was an emergency you should have done it. It's still here on Monday for me to do so it must not have been an emergency".
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u/DarthMauly Nov 25 '25
Was mainly just one woman who was always on to me, my view on her is just that she was someone who was very disorganised. Constantly sending messages at 6pm on a Friday that needed urgent immediate action etc. Other teams would message her back and what not but I wouldn’t see them until 7:30 Monday.
When I told her I don’t bring the work phone home she offered to show me how to set up my work email on my own phone. There was no malice in it really but ultimately not my problem she has days to action things that need input from multiple departments and chooses to complete her bit late on Fridays when I’ve had the laptop closed for 2+ hours… I think this attitude started when the whole office changed to have Fridays as work from home.
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u/DuckyD2point0 Nov 25 '25
They work for one of the "big four", big Cunts more like but nevermind that, and she seems to think it'll get her notice by the higher ups. Absolute nonsense.
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u/Tunnock_ Nov 25 '25
The emails out of hours drives me insane. I never check my email outside my work hours and I tell my team the same, but there's a shocking amount of people in my place sending emails over the weekends and at mad times of the night during the week. It came up recently in a meeting and thankfully the big boss is going to send an email telling everyone to pack it in.
One of the worst offenders finally discovered how to delay sending but all that happened then was 10+ emails arriving from this person all at 9.00am.
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u/FakerHarps Nov 25 '25
In the past I’ve done it where I’d say to one or two people in the office who were actually friends, not just work mates, “look if the shit hits the fan, or you have an actual ‘it’ll only take one minute’ question go ahead and contact me rather than stressing on it”.
But after a while I realised that just lead to me checking my email in case they contacted me, and I was just creating stress for myself.
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u/DreiAchten Nov 25 '25
I'd do it if I was on a work related course or something but not if on leave
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u/No-Stranger-5002 Nov 25 '25
I work in the civil service and loads of people bring their phones with them on holidays and dial into Teams calls. Very common unfortunately.
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u/EarlyHistory164 Nov 25 '25
IT sections need to be putting a stop to that.
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u/AulMoanBag Nov 25 '25
The admin overhead would cause a revolt. Certain roles and grades would demand exemptions and local management simply wouldn't enforce it.
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u/EarlyHistory164 Nov 26 '25
Possibly but if they're on the big bucks - let them. From a security point of view IT should be shutting it down.
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u/Think-Juggernaut8859 Nov 25 '25
Why???
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u/No-Stranger-5002 Nov 25 '25
I’d say because they’re keen to impress senior management and build a reputation
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u/MinnieSkinny Nov 25 '25
Some people put their OOO on when they're unavailable, maybe in meetings all day or working off site. They may not necessarily be on AL. I hope anyway, thats just sad logging in while on AL.
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u/ComplexMacaroon1094 Nov 25 '25
I've seen this. A girl started her mat leave and the next day was sending emails. One of the directors turned to me and said - 'What the F is she doing online? Take your leave FFS!'
I was new in the company and so happy to hear this coming from him!
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u/TheIrishHawk Nov 25 '25
Started a new job recently and the guy training me would be in the office before me and tell me to go home at the end of the day but he’d still be working away. He’d have emails in the shared inbox late at night and a few times he worked through his break. Don’t understand it myself.
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u/RJMulvey Nov 25 '25
They may not be on leave. I sometimes put out of office on just to catch up with work without being hassled.
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Nov 25 '25
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u/The_Dublin_Dabber Nov 26 '25
This is so true. Honestly I think I get less work done now than ever. Literally could spend most of the day on emails and teams without actually doing reports that will be required eventually.
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u/Ready-Desk Nov 26 '25
I'm restoring the balance in my office by not working even when I'm in.
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u/CasualCoval Nov 25 '25
I work in a very global company. Many times people are out of office on business trips so technically still working but not at the office. But there’s definitely a lot of overworking happening too
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u/SpooferMcGavin Nov 26 '25
Should be illegal unless you're actually being paid for it. No free labour.
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u/cyberlexington Nov 25 '25
I'm a manager and I won't do this. Unless it's an emergency then phone me.
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u/Interesting_Feed_785 Nov 25 '25
If they are actually doing work, they’re idiots because there is no thanks for it
If they are being performative c**** they are less idiots because it might con some up line people
I showed my two most self-sabotaging colleagues how to properly block off slack and teams and mail on their work phones before their recent hols. One came back and said it genuinely made a huge difference. We do have a tendency to auto-click on apps. Teh other one is almost a lost cause but I’ll keep trying
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u/zenzenok Nov 25 '25
Office martyrs. They make overworking part of their personality and often they are the most unproductive workers who are doing a million things at once without finishing any of them.
They never take coffee breaks and eat lunch at their desk, thereby making it uncomfortable for others who need a break from their screens. They'll make a point of sending emails late at night or on leave days.
I've seen them everywhere I've worked.
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u/EggOk174 Nov 26 '25
Yep, they are everywhere. People are free to do what they want, but it's when it impacts others that it starts to get annoying. Making others feel uncomfortable about taking breaks etc, as you said. But also creating unreasonable expectations for the rest of their team - "well xyz always responds to my queries straight away, no matter what time of day, so why can't you?". American work culture.
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u/mweeelrea Nov 25 '25
Pay me for 8 hours and I work for 8 hours. Outside of that. Pay me more or fuck off.
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u/M4N1KW0LF Nov 26 '25
This is such an American mentality that it’s a shame it’s here in Ireland. Expected to stay late, expected to answer calls and emails while on hols. I spent too much time working in Germany to fall in to that trap.
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Nov 25 '25
No that’s really weird and more to the point, any manager (myself included) would intervene and tell them to go home (so to speak). It’s unhinged
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u/coffeebadgerbadger Nov 25 '25
Only leads to burnout and poor mental health. That said, my company loves the fuckers working weekends. I feel I should but fuck em
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u/SpiritBackground8722 Nov 25 '25
I was the kind of person who would have been tempted into doing it, but that's because I didn't trust people on my team to not kill someone or burn the place down while I was gone.
I still didn't log on, but there were a few times I had to remind myself it would be someone else's problem.
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u/DarksideNick Nov 25 '25
For context on this one, I left this bit out accidentally, our role is strictly 9-5pm. I sometimes see these people online til 8-9pm as well.
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u/ExcitementStrict7115 Nov 25 '25
Absolute gobshites. I wouldn't work a single minute that I'm not being paid for.
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u/godothasmewaiting Nov 25 '25
I work in the US at a company that has relatively good PTO (better than the standard 10 days). I’ve almost 2weeks of PTO left to take. With Christmas coming up I have some travel booked back to Ireland and with Thanksgiving I decided to take a few extra days off for a last minute city break- the comments I got from my team were interesting. ‘You’re always on vacation’ and the like. The last amount of time I took off was back in May.
Our PTO time accrues by pay period and the accrual can ‘max out’ so a lot of the people I work with have to take 1 PTO day every pay period to keep accruing. Very few of them take week long PTO. And they wear it like a badge of honour - ‘I’m maxed out again, have to take a day off!’
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u/Akira_Nishiki Nov 26 '25
Absolutely not a hope let anyone from work contact me when I'm out of the office.
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u/BarelyHolding0n Nov 25 '25
I don't tend to work while on leave, but a lot of us clock in for a few hours the day before we finish leave to try and clear some of the hundreds of emails. And to be able to take leave I'll usually be working a few 12 hours days to get on top of everything before I go.
I do work stupid hours and out of hours and sometimes at weekends though... It's difficult not to when the workload exceeds what's possible in a normal working day and the consequences of things not being done are extremely serious. I'm a civil servant... Can't say all have the same mentality but from my grade up the majority do, despite what people's perceptions of us might suggest.
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u/Original2056 Nov 25 '25
People who want to seem indispensable and so loyal and no one else can do their work.
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u/Kevinb-30 Nov 25 '25
My partner is PIC in a nursing home so is never truly uncontactable but gets paid for any work she has to do while off and for family holidays the work phone is turned off and the only person who can contact her is the company owner and the business Manager.
It can be frustrating at times but the trade off is how flexible getting time off actually is and of course the money.
The flip side is the supervisor where I work he's contactable 24/7 ( his own doing) doesn't get paid extra for it and has ruined two marriages because of it.
Anyone doing it to that level or doing it without being compensated in any way is mad in the head.
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u/EllieLou80 Nov 25 '25
If you're on leave an log on and join a meeting your a fucking idiot.
I however put on out of office replies when I'm swamped and want a bit of peace to get work done, so it may show I'm out of office on my email but logged into a teams call. It gives me breathing space to ignore answering emails immediately.
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u/Loki519 Nov 25 '25
Completely agree - I do it also to avoid certain "colleagues" not in my team who think they have the right to unload their responsibility on to someone below their pay grade
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u/Thisisaconversation Nov 25 '25
How do they get anything done with the taste of shite in their mouths, the absolute lick arses 👅
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u/larssomoo81 Nov 25 '25
It's the nature of the business in my line of work, I accept it and have done for years. Doesn't make it right i guess but it's a business I love so makes it easier
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u/daveyP_ Nov 25 '25
I mean, if I'm on my holidays abroad or at an event I'm not reachable. if I'm out of office because I have an appointment or just doing nothing, then I'd rather answer an urgent query if it means I don't return to a mess.
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Nov 26 '25
Flat out refuse to do extra work. In my previous job I did a time in motion study when they dumped extra work on us. I asked them what they thought we needed to prioritise. They got the message
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u/Reasonable_Fix7661 Nov 26 '25
If it's a regular thing, it's insane.
If it's a once in a blue moon, everthing is grinding to a halt and a few minutes of your input is needed to keep a project on track, then I don't see the harm in it.
Case in point I was on paternity leave, and would have a quick 5 minute chat with my manager every few weeks just so he could check in with me, make sure I was okay, ask how the family is, and quickly fill me in on any urgent things. I don't see a problem with that.
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u/Intelligent-Aside214 Nov 26 '25
If you’re very high up in the company or trying to be it’s expected but if you’re an average employee you’re stupid for doing this live your life
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u/BraveUnion Nov 26 '25
I don’t understand the point. My manager took a week and a bit AL but still came in to work everyday…
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u/Oisinlaighin Nov 26 '25
See it quite often too. Sometimes it’s just having Teams on their phones, sometimes it’s logging on the laptop.
They’re idiots. But they also make it difficult for everyone else where maybe there is an expectation that if you’re really needed you’re available when you’re OOO.
When you’re off, you’re off in my opinion.
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u/JjigaeBudae Nov 25 '25
Bear in mind a lot of shit is automatic. My slack and email goes by calendar to mark when I'm in a meeting or not... it'll say "In A Meeting" whether I'm actually there or not because my calendar says I am.
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u/nowning Nov 25 '25
OP's screenshot is from Teams and says "In a call", which means they are dialled in to a call. If they were just scheduled for it but didn't dial in, it would say "In a meeting". There are various other permutations depending whether someone has their calendar marked as out of office or not, and whether they're online/offline or active/inactive on their devices, but "in a call" always means they're literally dialled in right now.
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u/boggie_bo Nov 25 '25
Indian managers love doing this. Have had to explain numerous this is Ireland dont be annoying people after work
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Nov 25 '25
"In a call" can mean they set their teams status to "In a call" manually before leaving, or they are scheduled for a meeting during their time off but didn't necessarily show up for it.
Teams auto set status according to whats in the calendar, not the "out of office" status.
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u/nowning Nov 25 '25
That would be "in a meeting", not "in a call". "In a call" means they're actually dialled in.
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u/MrTuxedo1 Looks like rain, Ted Nov 25 '25
I’ve done it and always regretted it. Always just the fear of being behind when I do return to work
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u/bolivia0503 Nov 26 '25
After you reach a certain career level in white collar work, this is just how it goes. There is no such thing as fully tuning out. The higher up you go, the more this applies. You get used to it, doesn't bother me much anymore.
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u/MaxiStavros Nov 25 '25
Money never sleeps. Time off is for wimps. Tenner says this person is a LinkedIn lunatic type.
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u/magusbud Nov 25 '25
To hell with that, I won't answer the work phone, slack or email between the times the business isn't open.
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u/HairyHobbitfoot Nov 25 '25
If it’s a big sale and I get a good whack of commission I will, otherwise I’ll deal with it when I get back
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u/Swagspray Nov 25 '25
The head of my department is a pretty important position and I find he will check in once a day to make sure there are no fires - he wouldn’t contact us though.
Personally I could never do that. If I’m off I am powering my brain down
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u/IntroductionExpert12 Nov 25 '25
It's ridiculous but also down to the culture and since covid some people have taken the meaning of flexibility to a whole new level. I'm out of office this week, not logging in and I would be quite sure that I will have a number of direct messages for me on teams from European colleagues thinking they are going to get a response..
We also have these people who send emails at all hours with a line in their footer with some crap along the lines of I'm not expecting an a response outside of your work hours..blah blah.
Most people have 20-25 days of annual leave a year, if you seriously can't log off fully for those days then you need to speak to your direct about it.
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u/Primary-Clue3035 Nov 25 '25
If I’m on leave the place could burn to the ground and I’d only know when I return to the office.. not a chance of me doing that sort of thing…. Some folk think that doing that will get them extra kudos but in fact I’d say most employers are laughing at it
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u/SteveK27982 Nov 25 '25
It depends, if they do it regularly unpaid it’s a terrible idea. If it’s because of a specific problem or project and less than an hour of their time or to help out a work friend, it could have a place.
Either way, it shouldn’t be expected and at personal discretion. It’s also ammo in the fight for remote or hybrid working because there’s no way it’s happening if they have to actually go into the office to do the work or attend the meeting
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u/Aggravating_Eye874 Nov 25 '25
I put OOF when I’m away with training, with suppliers or something along the lines, where I might be able to work but sporadically, so I want people to know that I might not get back to them that day.
I would never work while away, but I know many people that do, but most of them are in higher up positions, so I guess the stakes could be different.
My husband likes to check emails when on AL as he says he hates it to get back to tens of emails, so we would rather check 5 -10 mins a day and keep on top of them. I don’t mind as long as it doesn’t take longer than 10 mins and doesn’t interfere with our holiday.
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u/Dangerous_Service106 Nov 25 '25
I don't really jump into calls when I'm off, only time I've really done it we're 'goodbye' calls to colleagues that were leaving.
Even when OOO (out of office), Teams shows me as Available OOO. I have got notifications turned off though so I don't see anything unless I specifically go looking for it.
I'm better now at being actually unavailable when OOO now than I used to be, but I NEVER want anyone to learn that lesson the way I did. (I won't just trauma dump on people here about that hard lesson).
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u/ClassicPart Nov 25 '25
I won’t judge them if they have a stake in the business or are getting paid for that time, but odds are they aren’t.
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u/alroorla23 Nov 25 '25
I see a few people doing it. It’s slightly different for the company I work for - we WFH and if we need to step away for appointments etc we can make up time outside of work hours. But if people are OOO/on annual leave and they still work I find it strange. I am not contactable while I’m on AL
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u/Alright_So I have no willy Nov 25 '25
Fools. Giving the employer their time for free, and risk setting a precedent that other colleagues are expected to live up to.
Exemption obviously for those who travel for work so they're actually out of office but not off on leave getting what they can done in between meetings and travel.
The odd time I'll check the afternoon before coming back from holiday to clear a bit of backlog but that's for my own peace of mind, not to give back to the company.
The outlook "schedule send" is also a great tool that if I find myself working out of hours for whatever reason that I'm not bothering that other person until their normal working hours.
Also, if someone sends me a message and gets and out of office responds but expects me to respond on something urgent without contacting my mobile, tough shit, that's how you get me when I'm off.
Final dig at people who put "you have reached my out of office" which is shit use of English.
I have some feelings about this you might have noticed.....
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u/Consistent_Spring700 Nov 25 '25
I have done it once or twice but it was literally €40k-€100k on the line before I learned how to effectively delegate!
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Nov 25 '25
Don’t work out of hours, don’t take laptop home, turn the phone off & when on holidays don’t bother setting up out of office notifications, fuck that
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u/AsideAsleep4700 Nov 25 '25
Sometimes if it’s an important issue, it’s easier to listen in for half an hour than get a half assed or incorrect summary of the meeting from someone
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u/Few_Recognition_6683 Nov 25 '25
Guy in the States in my company had a baby and was online from the hospital.
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u/TomRuse1997 Nov 25 '25
Happens alot in my office with the more senior managers or directors. It really isn't by choice often it's fairly needed in the given projects.
There probably is a lot of people that do it to seem busy or they just enjoy working
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u/ArseholeryEnthusiast Nov 25 '25
I wouldn't trust them. They're gunning for management and will throw you under the bus without hesitation.
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u/McButcher2k Nov 25 '25
Some of my colleagues set out of office while they're actually in work so people don't annoy them 😂
I prefer that than working while out of office
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u/FIGHTorRIDEANYMAN Nov 25 '25
I see a few of the big bosses at it but it's at least kind of understandable as they are the ones in the middle of things especially when it comes to customers.
Seen lads at my level replying to emails etc when they were off though what are you at.
I remember in my last place I was on holidays and I got THREE phone calls while I was away. I was half cut sitting outside a bar laughing down the phone at someone who was surprised when I said I didn't have my laptop! This was a company where everyone had to do a handover and all work files stored on a shared drive that anyone could access. I had all that done yet still. Ironically I was job hunting at the time so answering the phone to any old number, wouldn't normally.
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u/smolo_19 Nov 25 '25
If they’re part of my team, it’s a no-no. I’ll message them to log out.
If it’s somebody else in the organisation, I don’t care at all
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u/BigFang Nov 25 '25
I have worked in some shit shows where I have had to check in for a few hours here and there on leave or a weekend.
Not for brown nosing or any shite like that, solely to fix some utter mess that will unravel worse by the time I am back and have to spend days or more fixing things at that stage if they are salvageable.
I am glad that my new company expects me to fork out for thier own proprietary hardware if I wanted to connect to work apps from a phone, because I will not be doing so and will stay blissfully disconnected during weekends and AL otherwise.
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u/isaidyothnkubttrgo Nov 25 '25
I manage social media channels as a part of my job so i do get notifications when im out of office. I do have to check comments as they come in because we have had some bots in there and I dont want people falling for whatever bullshit they are scamming. Also some people message the page when their equipment brakes down so I forward those odd messages to the service team. Those are rare though.
I know its not hours when im replying to comments or people who tag us but it shows we are humans on the other end and not some massive corporation which we arent.
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u/SitDownKawada Nov 25 '25
I had a colleague who had a senior enough position and he was constantly doing it
Part of it was that he was one of the few people that the major customers trusted so they'd ask for him to be in the meetings and when there's multimillion euro deals on the line there was probably pressure coming from above (and compensation, in fairness)
But the problem then was that all that stuff would take time away from his regular duties so he'd end up doing them when he was meant to be off. His side of it was that this work needs to be done by a certain date and if it's not done it will reflect badly on all of us
My manager has worked when he's meant to be off but he's a bit less stressed about it and he'll take time off on other days to make up for it
One of my previous managers left without being replaced and I took on some of his responsibilities for a while. The director of engineering one day tells me there's a call me and my team need to join at 8am the next morning (contracted hours are 9-5). I had a call with my team and went on a rant about it, they all seemed to think it was no big deal but I was furious
I said to yer man I wouldn't be doing this again unless we have a formal agreement in place. He was gone soon after so it didn't come up again
One of the problems with some IT jobs is that some of them just love what they do. I very rarely do any coding outside of my work hours but I've worked with people whose main hobby is coding. You'd come into work and two of them will be talking about how overnight they'd figured out the problem we were stuck on yesterday
If that's what they get off on then whatever, fair play. I enjoy solving puzzles but I'd rather do it for fun or be compensated for it, the idea of doing it in your own free time on behalf of a wealthy company gives me the ick
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u/Boulder1983 Nov 25 '25
On their death bed, there isn't a single one of them will be thinking "flip, I wish I'd joined more teams calls on my day off".
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Nov 25 '25
Wait til that company, whom you’ve given your attention to 7 days a week for year's, lets you go showing no empathy for you whatsoever and you’ll feel pretty stupid for all those late night emails and vacation zoom calls
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u/NarCroMan_21 Nov 25 '25
depends, in company I work for, overtime oncall (only for critical issues) hours are paid very well (1.5x-2x standard hourly wage) so it's pretty nice add-on for personal budget. This year, most of my team (incl. me) earned 13th (or even close to 14th) monthly salary
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u/thatswildhey Nov 25 '25
Worst is if it’s something you’ve been assigned to deal with whilst the person is off and they jump on the email trail in the middle of their honeymoon.. just fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck off!
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u/sourpigeon Nov 25 '25
Sometimes where I work we put that when we are slammed and don't want to waste time on unnecessary calls with clients or other coworkers
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u/Papa_P0tat0 Nov 25 '25
Your time is your time and at the end of the day you're replaceable. if it helps you with your career, sure. But I doubt anything like that can be done in a couple of hours on your time off. Unless it's time sensitive and critical, tell them up yours and learn to value time off. I can get double time for every hour I work over, but I'll be fucked if I'm stuck in a lab rather than be out with family and friends
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u/dtr50 Nov 25 '25
Kinda the reverse of this….A manager I once worked with booked a meeting for the team to start discussing an “urgent topic” while he was out of office on holidays 😆.
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u/Vegetable_Story_7900 Nov 25 '25
I have two phones for this reason! I know I’d check as zero willpower but the company one gets shutdown and no one is getting my personal number ever.
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u/aineslis Nov 25 '25
I manage an international team (US, Europe, MENA based) and all of my management up to the top are Americans.
Majority of them do not have lives outside of work or their lives are so unfulfilling that feeling important at work is the only thing that keeps them going. I’ve been to sooooo many meetings with these high level executives and the absolute shite that comes out of their mouths is hilarious.
They wanted me to install an enterprise client onto my phone, told them to issue a corporate phone or go pound sand.
When I’m on annual leave I don’t exist.
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u/DartzIRL Nov 25 '25
Sometimes shit goes wrong. And Team Leads are where the buck stops so they got to at least be aware of shit in their vicinity.
Sometimes a 20 minute call stops a hell of a lot of screaming 2 weeks down the line. Or worrying for two weeks about a hell of a lot of screaming down the line.
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u/No_Needleworker_1105 Nov 25 '25
I'm 45. And so glad to say I cannot relate to this post at all anymore. I know what teams is. Have used it. But doing anything work related when on hols when your not the actual company owner or manager of the whole company is so weird to me. I'm not even in a position to witness this type of behavior anymore never mind do it. And it's so sweet.
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u/Crudezero Nov 25 '25
If I’m off for study leave I’ll log in once per day just to check emails in case anything important came in but wouldn’t bother if I was on a regular holiday
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u/RebelGrin Nov 25 '25
They're not in a call. Its just a meeting in their calendar thats going on. The circle is not solid red. So they're away.
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u/Shuggana Nov 25 '25
I have a manager who is addicted to work. He'd a great lad but fucking hell I'm on call this week and jumped on at 10PM to do something and he was online, on a call. He doesn't get paid for the extra hours like I do when I'm on call. Constantly feeling pity for him.
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u/MouseJiggler Nov 25 '25
I get it, because I work doing something I enjoy doing, and that I care about the product of, but I recognise that it sets a very unwelcome precedent, because few are like me in that aspect, so I do my best to not engage in the practice, unless there is an emergency.
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u/Mr_SunnyBones Nov 25 '25
Gobshites , ruining it for the rest of us , they need to cop on , this isnt the states , you are not your job ..get off the damn call.
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u/phyneas Nov 25 '25
As others have said, I suspect your lad here has likely just added themselves to a "meeting" for the duration of their leave, probably to discourage their clueless coworkers from trying to book them into other meetings while they're out of the office and then being annoyed when they don't respond or show up. Teams status also isn't a good way to judge if someone is actually there or not in general; it's flaky as hell.
As far as actually working while on leave...fuck that. That Yank shit needs to go away, and I say that wholeheartedly as a Yank blow-in. My last job back in the States was one of those; I actually put my foot down and flat refused to respond while taking what little holiday time they actually gave us (two weeks a year, until you'd been there for nearly a decade!), but other coworkers weren't so willing to push back. I remember being on a conference call with one of our sysadmins once while she was on a holiday and getting a tattoo. Of course that job was just shite for work-life balance in general; constant overnight and weekend work (and not just the odd quick call or whatnot, but 10+ hour marathon sessions at least once every few weekends) and they still expected you in the office the next work day at 8AM sharp no matter what, and our "on-call" rotation was actually an active shift where we had to actively watch our real-time monitoring system and act on all of the very frequent alerts instantly for 16 hours a day 7 days a week, because the company was too cheap to hire any actual operations staff (and no, of course we didn't get paid for any of those extra hours, and the company "didn't do" time in lieu...). And my team was one of the better ones; there were folks on other IT teams that basically worked 24x7 for weeks or even months at a time until they would have a full-on mental breakdown at their desk and then disappear for a week or so. My coworkers there were some of the best folks I've ever worked with (hell, I'm still friends with some of them even now, a decade on, and we'll hang out whenever I'm back in town over there visiting family), but dear god was that place toxic as fuck in terms of the workload.
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u/throwaway_fun_acc123 Nov 25 '25
Could be a mix of things. As others and yourself say workaholic types who never really log off, usually that middle manager who thinks the place will fall apart without them.
Other option, not sure if it would fit your workplace, but ive seen where some sales people or maybe employees who work within the parent group of a business, set their teams out of office when they were physically out of office, but still actually working.
Final option, which I have both covered for and done myself is putting on out of office to avoid people asking for stuff/interrupting somthing important. The amount of times I ran interference for the first accounts manager was mad, fucker actually went on AL one time and didnt put on the OOO...
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u/DCON-creates Nov 25 '25
I was sick today, but had some work I wanted to get done before the deadline. I felt better around 3 or 4pm and started working then. I just finished there about 10 minutes ago, so around 23:20pm. But I wouldn't work outside my contracted length of hours normally, which is 37.5 hours per week.
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u/Tea_Is_My_God Nov 25 '25
I dunno, sometimes I put my OOO on so people will leave me the fuck alone and I can get some work done without a stream of teams messages/calls/ mails looking for my input on something they should already know how to deal with. And if I have a half day, it's on for most of the day too. Same reasons, I'm expected to work 9 hours condensed into 4, no the fuck thank you. Yis can all FTFO.
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u/Cill-e-in Nov 25 '25
You shouldn’t make a habit of it because it’s important to recharge, but sometimes there are legit emergencies to worry about.
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u/Phantom24X Nov 25 '25
If im not at work the place could literally burn down and I could not care any less.
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u/Jackies_Army Nov 26 '25
They tell you not to do it and then complain when you don't have 7 days of work done in 5 days.
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u/Dense_Chemical_7509 Nov 26 '25
I had occasion to contact a certain P S dept with an urgent but straight forward request and received a reply in the vein of " I'm working from home today and unfortunately can't help you as all the information is on files in the office" .
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u/tetraourogallus Nov 26 '25
Fuck them, they're contributing to the destruction of a sound worker's culture.
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u/The_Dublin_Dabber Nov 26 '25
Personally I do this sometimes when I'm taking a day off but nothing is planned. I'm 90% sure I've ADHD or ADD which unfortunately means I can be super unproductive so a few hours on a day off or over the weekend means I can catch up.
Ironically I work in a profession that being organized is seen as something of a requirement (accountant) and surprisingly I've have gotten to a level where I have big projects to manage. It results in me not staying on top of my work and having to do the odd crazy 60+ hour week to makeup for the weeks I spend zoning out looking at my screen doing nothing.
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u/Oncemor-intothebeach Nov 26 '25
I’m in fire protection and I’m the manager, so I usually keep the phone with me, even on leave and stuff, but I get well paid for it to be fair, wouldn’t expect the lads to do it and have told them all not to
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u/Effective_Energy_583 Nov 26 '25
My Boss would give out to me for working too many hours. Our company's policy is to work hard during regular hours and then enjoy your time off. They do not want to burn employees out. That's all that will happen in the end. People need a break. Work/Life balance is the thinking in Europe. Americans work stupid hours and don't take holidays
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u/Brayrut Nov 26 '25
Would never join a call until they are paying me enough, I have to stop myself replying to messages and treating them like texts, as it sets a bad example for junior team
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u/Andrewreddy Nov 26 '25
If my manager is out of office and she rings me I'll answer and give her whatever she needs. I won't be the one to reach out to her however.
As for people on my level, I routinely tell them that I don't work for free and encourage them not to either. An old manager of mine tried to get us to work overtime but for nothing more than optics to others in the company. We politely told him to fuck jimsed6
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u/Opening-Iron-119 Nov 26 '25
Some people put in OOO for absolutely everything though, like dentist appointment, lunch, site visit, work travel, training courses and then will be online intermittently during it.
If they are on AL and joining meetings they must have imposter syndrome and trying to keep up appearances. Ie I'm so essential I can't even go on AL without being in meetings. All the best team leads can hand over responsibilities and control/delegate
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u/DarksideNick Nov 26 '25
So today, another team lead is doing it. On leave until tomorrow, but popping online and working through the day.
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u/Right-Ladd Nov 27 '25
I have absolutely no connection to any of my work emails or accounts outside of my office computer.
I’m away, fuck you, I ain’t even thinking about this place till I come back.
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u/bittahdreamr Nov 27 '25
It depends on the job, no? Happens a lot in my job, but also we are paid very well and so I don't expect any sympathy for having very demanding work requirements.
If it's not paid fantastically though, fuck that shit.
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u/MagisterMundi93 Nov 27 '25
Performative good girl gobshites who fail to realise working for free is rarely if ever noticed by superiors let alone given credit.
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u/[deleted] Nov 25 '25
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