Mine is - DO NOT go to the building you work at. Like if you’re a retail worker, it is not wise to go to the store you work at or the restaurant. Because they see you come in shopping for whatever reason, they’ll possibly be on your ass about you being able to come in and shop but not work that day.
Are you talking about calling in sick, or taking PTO? Because I’ll be damned if anyone is gonna jump my ass over spending my earned time off as I please.
If I call in sick, I usually just stay at home and freak out all day about someone from work coming by.
Lol. I take personal days 'cause I don’t wanna work that day. So if I wanna go in to shop, they ain’t gonna bitch at me, lol.
When setting an auto-reply out of office message, don’t forget to configure it to only reply to internal email senders, else you’ll be sharing some pretty juicy info (names and contact details) to people outside your organization.
This depends heavily on your role. My vacation responder is exclusively for external people, the internal ones can see my slack status and know who to contact if i’m out of pocket, but randos outside my org who need something need directed to a person who can field whatever the email is about.
Or don’t add names or details into the auto-reply. I just use “fyi hey I might reply with a longer delay than usual”
My only rule for PTO days is never forget that you put in for them and accidentally go to work. So far I have a 100% success rate in avoiding that.
When I was a kid my moms rule was no video games on sick days. When I’m not feeling well and I take a sick day I don’t play games. I may watch movies or otherwise have screen time but I actually feel like not engaging with gaming makes me more restful and helps me get better faster.
That rule was designed to discourage you from faking it.
Flip a coin for if its needs to be a productive/todo busting day or a funday. Respect the result always and cite frequently
Turning off teams messages on my phone.
Making sure to opt out of all meetings during that time so no one expects me.
If my vacation spans multiple days, my only rule for how I should use my free time is to not just sit in front of the TV all day. Do some chores, go to some cool place, work on a personal project, go on a long hike, whatever. Usually I have plans anyways when I take a long vacation.
That would depend whether you took a day off sick or just… a day off. If it’s a day off then you can spend it however you like, but I agree it can cause awkward questions if you are off sick but are seen.
Uhh am I misinterpreting what “a day off” means? If I take a day off the I so whatever I please. Why would my employer care? When I worked at the store I’d still visit the store on my off days. And at my current work I’d absolutely share it whenever I did something nice on my day off. Or do you mean sick leave or something?
Agree. Context from OP suggests it’s a sick day, but day off = paid holiday, surely?
If it’s a sick day, by god do not touch ANY of your social media. Your boss (or worse, the office/shop/site brown-noser) will check.
If it’s a sick day I definitely check my social.media and will even check work-teams every few hours.
I will talk to my boss or my boss-boss on teams during a sick day.
Union.
Your union is not doing enough
Tell us more about their union.
Sounds like bosses are still forcing people to reply things on corporate messaging. That’s unpaid work.
Don’t tell any boss specifics of what you’re doing. If you have to tell anyone only tell close coworkers that won’t blab to others.
Look at the millionaire that has time off
I try not to waste the day, and actually leave the house to do fun stuff.
I also try to completely avoid work email, slack. Generally the less I consciously think about work the better.
There are no hard and fast rules, but my approach is to pretend like I’m retired and living my best life.
I don’t think there really are rules like that, just do as you wish. I bet there is a good reason for you to have the day off anyway.
Transition your work so it doesn’t make others have to figure out what you did or didn’t.
Leave your laptop at work or completely turned off, put on automatic replies, do not work, like really do not work.
If you are trying to accomplish something at home, schedule it and do it at a relaxed pace.
