mryoop789: I wish my boss wouldn't email me after business hours. I always ignore those emails until I get to work, so maybe she'll get the hint.

I always say that if the company has no problem injecting itself into your personal life by contacting you about work matters outside of working hours, they should also remove all of their restrictions on office conduct (within the law, of course). If the boss man wants me to spend Sunday evening working on a report or whatever, he shouldn't be all that indignant if I'm drinking a beer and playing Xbox at 2pm on a Wednesday.

Of course if people didn't respond to work outside of work hours then maybe work would stop bothering you.

I've lost a couple perfectly good erections that I was about to put someplace beside my hand because of the work phone going off at inopportune times, so I am so not getting a kick out of any of these replies.

/24x7 call FTL

eddyatwork: Of course if people didn't respond to work outside of work hours then maybe work would stop bothering you.

Particularly if you live in a right-to-work state.

fredbox: I've lost a couple perfectly good erections that I was about to put someplace beside my hand because of the work phone going off at inopportune times, so I am so not getting a kick out of any of these replies.

/24x7 call FTL

Maybe you should have put the phone on vibrate.

Kind of wonder sometimes if I'm the only guy who doesn't bring work home, and doesn't bring home to work.

/ But I Fark from both?

gadian: but I have the option not to, and that makes all the difference.

QFT. Sometimes I see the email, but choose not to bite the bullet till tomorrow morning when im scheduled to be in. Sometimes I engage it. That choice makes me very happy.

FTA: "Thierry Breton, chief executive of the French information technology services giant, Atos. He said workers at his firm were wasting hours of their lives on internal messages both at home and at work. He has taken the more radical step of banning internal email altogether from 2014"

IMO a "giant" company (presumably with multiple worksites) banning internal email is a terrible idea. I prefer to have my boss' ridiculous demands in writing so I can show them exactly what they said when they later change their minds entirely and claim I should have known what they meant.

When working late and sending routine emails that require a reply, I always include some variation of "please get back to me by noon Thursday" or whenever so the recipient knows I don't expect an immediate response. Urgent issues (ie relating to public safety or asset damage) are initiated by phone, with a follow-up email to maintain the paper trail.

fredbox: I've lost a couple perfectly good erections that I was about to put someplace beside my hand because of the work phone going off at inopportune times, so I am so not getting a kick out of any of these replies.

/24x7 call FTL

That poor, lonely pie.

/I keed

Earguy: Great. Now, work can also stop burning up my cell phone minutes.

If my company has to reach you on a mobile phone, they buy you a blackberry specifically for official use. I don't know what kind of magic IT uses to get them on the normal phone system no matter what country they are based out of. I'm also not looking forward to getting one of those phones.

I'm all about work/life balance but the thing is my job is a pretty integral part of who I am as a person, so I don't really care if it bleeds over a bit. Construction deadlines and co-ordinating vendors that may be coming from anywhere to a site in Shanghai while based in Europe means some creative scheduling sometimes if I need to get more than 1 email a day processed.

/holy fark! when did I grow up

It sounds like I'm not alone - but I actually prefer a job that acknowledges the flexibility modern technology gives us. I have work that needs to get done. When, how and where it gets done isn't very important.

Jobs that let people work from home (when people aren't worthless POS and actually work) are great. I like that, if I have some problem with the bank or my cell phone or I need to get a gift for my wife - I can take 2-3 hours out of the day and go do that without needing permission from my boss. And, likewise, I'm more than happy to respond to an e-mail I see at 7pm because, I'm so much of a loser, that I'm on my laptop at 7pm anyway.

Since I mostly enjoy the stuff I do at work, it's not a big deal for me to need this big separation from it at home. So long as it's reasonably done, I prefer it.

Some days I'm tired - so I'd show up at 10am and work from home that night. Friday afternoon - I might take off at 2pm because, hey, I'm not really getting any work done since I'm focused on the weekend - but Saturday afternoon, I've got nothing else to do - I'll gladly remote in and get some work done.

The way I do it is my clients can always reach me 24/7 and I have alarms strapped to me when I sleep if it's really important but otherwise I'm relaxing or doing research most of the time. It's rather peaceful but there's crazy hours.

/Chinese-American logistic agent for the family company
//If I'm up at noon it's because I haven't been asleep yet

unyon: I've taken the opposite approach to work/life balance. Yeah, I'm available 24/7, but there's a better than average chance that I have a beer in my other hand when you try to reach me. I make no assurances of my sobriety.

A friend of mine has to be on call about one week a month. During that time he can't be more than 20 minutes away from his home computer and can't have alcohol. Of course, he gets paid extra for that, but it makes having a social life a complete pain. On the other hand, there's no better excuse to sit at home and play videogames.

If you are an hourly based employee, the companies I've worked for wouldn't let you have access to email outside of the office. If you are salaried, you could; and those that did, moved up the chain.
Once again, people with zero corporate experience are getting all excited over something that is a rather common practice.

I'll read the email that comes in on my blackberry, but unless it's something I deem important, I won't respond back until the next time I'm in the office. On the other hand, I'll email other people at weird times of day or night when a question comes up, not expecting an answer until the next day because it's easier to send the email now than attempt to remember the question later.

If my boss needs me after hours she can always IM me on Steam. Whether I pause the game is another matter entirely.

Ah Fark, just a few days behind Reddit.

CravenMorehead: Ah Fark, just a few days behind Reddit.

Happy Thanksgiving!

At my last job, the boss and I had a disagreement on when I could be reached. I said that I was paid hourly, so I only wanted to talk about work and to coworkers when I was clocked in, and at no other time. My boss said that my job description included working with Executives, District Managers, Regional Directors, Vice Presidents and the CEO, COO and CFO and even though I was as underpaid, bottom rung employee who was paid hourly, if I was needed at 2 am, I had to be ready to answer phone calls or respond to emails because the jobs that those people did were more important to the company than my time away from the office was to me. I quit that job when they started to talk about paying me and my coworkers hourly so that I could no longer say "I'm off the clock, it's not my problem until tomorrow/monday morning." I knew that other salaried employees put in six day weeks, 60 to 70 hours a week but only paid on 40 hours. I said "To hell with that."

GAT_00: The restriction covers employees in Germany working under trade union negotiated contracts.

Damn socialist economic powerhouse.

Ah, ya beat me too it. Damn Unions always messing things up.

Why do people who want "work life balance" and not take emails or calls have no problem making personal phone calls and sending personal email during work hours.

I don't think you should do hundreds of emails after work but force them to stop and they are going to force you to stop.

Heck, I don't even respond to most emails while I'm at work let alone NEVER looking at emails outside of normal working hours.

I used to receive between 75-100 emails a day and so I finally said, "Fark that" and stopped reading/replying to most of them.

Co-workers have now come to the realization if they want to talk to me then they actually have to make the effort to talk to me via ways that predate emails. Wow. What a novel concept.

/Note to the slow of reading: I wrote "most emails"; not "all emails".

//Thank you for playing, though.

On-Call 24/7

Don't mind, but I have flexible hours, WFH when I want.
That's the key.

/ROME