OOO stands for OUT OF OFFICE

Stop the terrible habit of saying ‘I'm technically off, but I’ll be checking in’. Just be off.

There is no emergency in the world that needs you to respond to a text, or call from your manager when you’re off; whether on annual leave or outside your contracted hours. Not in the entertainment biz we find ourselves in at least.

Specifically when it comes to an extended time off there is a punishment which follows the return to work. In addition to the shame put on taking the time off to begin with you return to find that your collegues have not kept the ship from sinking, they’ve poked little holes at the bottom of it to make it sink faster. Flattering isn’t it? To know things wouldn’t function without you. Frustrating though. What is annual leave for? (shout out to unions and the International Labour Organisation for introducing the law in 1938 after a twenty year campaign). It’s meant to act as a time for rest. A time where you do nothing, because you’ve done enough for such a long time. A teeny tiny time which is directly proportional to the time you’ve worked. 

What I really can’t stand is the enormous amount of work which you’re expected to ‘finish’ or ‘wrap up’ or hand over - where the handover takes so much effort you might as well not go up most of your finals days before the holiday anyway. Then, there’s the risk of being contacted during the break with silly messages, and to make it all better when you’re back from holiday you have to come to terms with the return and instead of being eased in you’re thrown into the deep end. 

The thing about employment is that for some reason managers confuse your competence and ability to perform with you giving a shit. Whether it’s breaking the no contact rule on annual leave by claiming ‘just wanted to make sure you’re ok with this’ or ‘hey, can I just check?’ it all comes from a place which thinks you care about what’s happening. It’d be easier to care if you had time to rest.

Storytime.