Welcome to today’s daily kōrero!
Anyone can make the thread, first in first served. If you are here on a day and there’s no daily thread, feel free to create it!
Anyway, it’s just a chance to talk about your day, what you have planned, what you have done, etc.
So, how’s it going?
Thought for the day
One of my work mates got annoyed about an email from the health and safety team, it about being sun smart outside of work. It was obviously not the specific message they were annoyed about, but the perceived intrusion into the outside of work life.
Do you feel like your work life should be fully separate from your personal life?
I’m not too fussed about work/personal life separation, especially after hybrid working has become the norm, and since my role hasn’t been “mission critical” for a while now, which means I normally don’t get after-hours calls or emails.
But on the rare occasion I do get a work mail after-hours, I might read it if I’m free. Or even action it, if it can help me prepare for the next day (like say I need to do some research on a new product/topic). The way I look at this is, if I spend x minutes doing work stuff outside of work, then I’m gonna spend x minutes on personal stuff during work hours. Overall, I try to maintain a flexible “8hrs of work in a 24hr period” policy, instead of a “my work is strictly between 9-5” type thinking.
What I do mind however, is spam. And that means receiving unwanted, non-work, or even non-role related emails in my mailbox. I like to run a tight mailbox (an “inbox zero” policy), so if I were the recipient of that sunscreen email, I’d be mildly annoyed. Then I’d immediately look for an unsubscribe link, and/or create a rule to delete such emails email the future, and/or move it into the junk folder.
I have heard of people setting a timer for 7 hours 30 mins in the morning (that’s 30 min of paid breaks), then just pause it when you aren’t working and restart it when you start work again.
I’m not quite that dedicated and I do some longer and some shorter days, so doesn’t really work for me, but some people love that strategy.
I keep it entirely separate, though my job does make it quite easy to do so. They’re quite good about ensuring people only work their set hours, and don’t try to encroach at all, so I’m lucky there. I don’t even go to social stuff or the christmas party though - it always feels like work still to me.
I don’t know that I’d get upset about a reminder to be sunsmart, but I do try to keep work separate. I don’t use work devices for personal things, and I don’t use personal devices for work things. I will not put Teams or work email on my personal phone, and I don’t share my personal phone number.
After work time I do check for messages at night before bed in case of any last minute meeting requests or anything like that. However, if work expected me to do it, I’d refuse to 😄.
In summary, I don’t think work and personal life need to be fully separate, but I think it needs to be at the discretion of the employee not the employer. But even so, I’m not gonna get upset at an email suggesting to wear sunscreen.
I try to keep the actual work side apart as much as possible - I refuse to give my mobile number out to any client, no matter how important. Somehow an expectation evolved of being always available and it’s always been a really offensive idea to me, so although *technically *I can get work emails remotely, I don’t. The only time I’ve done it since lockdowns ended has been when the power was knocked out and we all went home.
I think with the email I would have been more irritated that the company is pretending they care, since I tend to take things like that with a decidedly patronising tone.
I was a contract engineer for years, so everyone and their dog has my mobile number. When I started this job I was offered a mobile phone which I refused, because I am not going to carry two phones.
But especially over the last 3 years, I am very specific about when I will answer my phone. I don’t generally get calls outside of work because I have made it clear to the team, if they are calling me it means that there is really some problem that they cannot solve. I tend to get angry if I get called when the problem is solvable by the people who are on call.
I have not put my work email on my phone; the reasoning is that email in by definition non-urgent information, if it is urgent then call. Therefore the email can wait at work until I get there.
The pretending to care is kind of silly, there is no way for the company to communicate these types of messages that doesn’t rely on the attitude of the recipient; the people sending the messages probably genuinely don’t want you to get hurt. If you are the type of person that see these things as the company being cynical then they are cynical. If you are the type of person to read these messages on the surface level then that is how you will see them.