“You’re never alone with a Strand.” as the advert said.
I tend to find the same with email, as last night proved. After a day of jobs and errands we sat down to eat and watch Death in Paradise. It was a relaxing end to the day.
That was before Julia decided to check her emails. When someone from the farm goes on holiday I make sure that I don’t disturb their time away with emails and work-related discussions. When I’m away I tend to ignore emails, to the point that when we last went away I made sure that we didn’t take computers and went to a B&B that didn’t have wireless.
Not everyone takes that attitude, and Julia fell into the the trap of opening an email from the farm last night. I won’t go into detail, because I’ll then be falling into the same trap myself, but it was something that, once known, needed action.
Me? I didn’t open the email. It’s about something that should have been done last year, and it should have been done by someone else.
In short, it’s not my problem. I’m not going to ignore it, but I’m not going to squander a few precious days off by dealing with it now.
“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” – Matthew 6:34
In this case, “the day” is the day that I return to work.
My husband got a work-related call on his phone while we were shopping in Waitrose in Buxton on holiday. It took him quite some time to convince his caller that he couldn’t and wouldn’t be doing anything about the call except re-direct the caller to someone else. The whole point of a holiday is to get away from work.
Exactly! Didn’t know there was a Waitrose in Buxton!
Oh yes!
I don’t answer email on vacation. Don’t even look at it until the day before I go back (just to prevent shock and get in the right frame of mind). I’ll never forget the boss who asked for my cell phone number when I was going to be hiking in the Bitteroot Mountains, waaaaaay out of range of any mobile signal…She never asked again. Thanks for following my blog. Yours looks pretty interesting too!
Thank you, though I’m not sure a few days in East Anglia compares with hiking in the Bitterroot Mountains (which I had to look up!).
I’m sure there are places in your neck of the woods that are ‘out of range.’ It was simply being unreachable that pleased me. Usually, as you write, there is a certain amount of discipline involved in not going there…
Sound reasoning. For myself, I try to approach being “out of the office” in two ways. If I am absent for a work related issue, I am still working and try to be at least somewhat available (checking email, taking voicemails or even answering a call if it arrives while I might be able to answer). If I am on holiday… it waits. This forces me into two levels of preparation for an absence – if I’m working I give my crew their assignments, and they know if they have any questions they can reach out – but they might need to be patient for a reply. If I’m going on holiday while the crew is still at work I have to line up more projects for them. If one thing goes sideways they put it on the shelf and go to the next. Bad things might still occur, but it gives you resources for evaluating who can best cope with difficulty when they don’t have you to lean on. I hope to retire one day; or I might die first… but either way, the world will go on without me (perhaps even better 🙁 ) …so why not get used to it?
Sound reasoning, though I’d definitely plan on dying after retiring or you can’t go back and mutter “…in my day…” 😉
Good for you
Already feeling better for the lack of email! 😉