9 Comments
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Lauren Gambill, MD, MPA's avatar

What I need is a text OOO function! I just got back from vacation where I left a very clear away message, only to have people start texting me which feels even more intrusive to me.

Maybe I need to specifically say “don’t text me when you receive this” ha.

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Jenny Cooke's avatar

Some of my colleagues have one phone for both work and personal use. I find that too intrusive, especially after spending six months permanently “second on call” (ie the person whom the on-call engineer would ring for back up) when I was an asset manager. (As I told my family at the time: Scotland is hilly, wet and I’m taking on responsibility for slope failures through the middle of winter: what could possibly go wrong?!)

I therefore turn my work phone off, and I turn it on once a day. I have around five people very close to me whose texts I will respond to (basically my boss and my immediate team, who know I’m away and will not get in touch unless it’s really urgent) and everyone else gets a response on my return as if they’d sent me an email.

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Jillian Bybee, MD's avatar

That is incredibly frustrating! Sometimes, I add that I'm not available for work-related issues by phone either. And then I set my phone to "personal" mode or do not disturb and pre-select whose communications I would like to be notified about (generally just husband and mom). It can be hard as a leader, but I try to pre-transition as much work as possible to someone else so they can cover me while I'm out. Other people just get left on read because it's a slippery slope once you start replying.

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Sophie S.'s avatar

Oh it's like you knew what I needed to hear after having worked almost half my weekend 🫣🫣 it's not a habit I want to develop but lately it's been so busy I've been taking work home, so a good reminder for me not to do this too often!!

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Jillian Bybee, MD's avatar

We all need this reminder from time to time! Hope you were able to find some time to relax!

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Jenny Cooke's avatar

I think I have now trained one of my team out of the habit of writing “Unfortunately, I’m out of the office/on leave” mainly by always writing back with: “You have booked and taken your annual leave - there is no need to apologise!”

At least, the last time he went away, his out of office read: “I’ve gone to Vegas and will try to return still with a shirt on my back” - although I’m not sure that was quite what I’d had in mind!!

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Jillian Bybee, MD's avatar

😂😂 That’s one way to do it!

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Dr Maya's avatar

This is a great article. I was out of the office last week and was still answering non-urgent phone calls while landing 🛬 Needless to say I was very disappointed with myself for doing this because it was not essential.

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Jillian Bybee, MD's avatar

This is so relatable and understandable. I hope you're giving yourself some grace. Our world is not set up for us to remember that it's ok not to be available 24/7, so it makes complete sense when we forget. All we can do is try again next time.

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