I'm a senior at a big tech company. You can do this in America too. Just communicate with your manager and set the boundary. "By the way, when I'm on vacation I'm away from devices, so let's coordinate beforehand if there's anything critical path."

> if you are on vacation, you are simply not available. You are dead to the world until you return. Emails do not get read, and devices get left at the office.

It's funny because that's kind of the definition of a vacation in my book. I find it weird that some places in the world handle it differently.

Note that it's also much better for the company in the long run: It's a test of resilience and redundany, the famous bus factor. It simulates what happens if someone is not available, and forces the organization around to have a backup plan. Having those is important for cases where employees leave the company or team (switching jobs/teams, accidents, sickness, parental leave, death, burnout, layoffs etc.). It's mind-boggling how many leads at various levels just don't understand that.

I've lived and worked in America my entire life, and in my approximately 40 years of working I've never had a job where I was expected or had to arrange to be available during a vacation. For the odd unplanned personal day maybe I'd try to check email and have my phone with me. But vacation, never.

> if you get sick on vacation, you get your vacation days back,

This slightly blew my American mind but it makes sense. What about getting sick on calendar holidays?

Not to forget that you get a minimum of four weeks of vacation per year with 30 days being offered most of the time.

This year I used my vacation time well and I already had 3 weeks off while I still have almost 4 weeks left.

This is how it should be though - nobody should be irreplaceable. Look up bus factor etc.

Thanks for the reminder that this shouldn't be taken for granted. I am a German and sometimes this privilege feels so normal that it's unthinkable that it could be different elsewhere in the world.

It can honestly be annoying, if you're not privvy to it.

I remember years ago needing urgent support for some bespoke European hardware we were developing software for. When we called support, we were greeted with a phone message stating the company was closed for the entire month due to vacation. This was not a one-man operation; the whole office closed for a summer holiday. We thought it was a joke.

Needless to say we started to look for a new vendor shortly thereafter...

I'm the same.

If I can answer a question with a 30-second response to a Slack message, I will, and I won't mind it as long as it's not frequent. I won't join a call, and I'm only logged into Slack and Outlook on my phone, so if answering requires checking something on Confluence or Jira, I can't help.

Maybe I feel this way because actually being asked something is exceptionally rare. I'll be gone for a week and MAYBE I'll get one message.

The idea with vacation is that you don't think about work. When I start vacation I disable all the channels that people usually use so that no one asks me even by accident. There needs to be a time when you are completely undisturbed and disconnected. If you are disturbed by work you will think about work while you answer and maybe even after that. That's not good.

I also think you should normalize for yourself and your workplace that there are times when you are not there. If only you can answer a question then there needs to be better documentation. See it as a trail run for when you get hit by a bus. If they will struggle without you then that is a problem that needs to be fixed. If you are always reachable these problems will never surface.

> This seems like a lot of extra work

Music to the ears of a workaholic :)

Seriously, that'd be nice if everyone would do this (and I do it now, very strictly) but I also know how easy for one to start blurring the lines between work and personal lives.

> Not a workaholic, I don't think, but a 24/7 stress monkey when I think that I could be helping

I er... think you might be a workaholic.

But I'm glad for you that your current setup is helping :)

I now want to seek an on site role and request a desktop computer.

This is exactly the move. Work and life should be separate. No work stuff on your personal devices; no personal stuff on your work devices. This way, you can be your best self in both worlds.

Quote from my partner's manager before a vacation:

"If I see you log on, I'll disable your account."

extremely relevant recent Kai Lentit skit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E7kBOH9owI

Being the only dev in a startup since 2 years without a single day off where I wasn't messaged by my employer I want this. At least I'll have a 3 week out of country trip where I do not bring my laptop later this year...

You're a good person.

My manager doesn't stop overworking. When told on peer performance review that we have people who are consistently overwork because they are swamped, he played it down.

But hey, at least he doesn't encourage overworking either.

>> Log out of all accounts, remove 2FA keys after backing them up on paper [...]

>> Signed: Former workaholic.

> Seems like a lot of extra work, just to go on vacation :)

That's the point, this person and plenty others, are NOT able to "just" go and disconnect. If you can do that, wonderful for you, but please don't assume others are like you precisely when they are humble enough to clarify that they do have a problem and try to help others to overcome it.

Regarding your edit, you might be ok with going on a multi-day hiking trip or family holiday while still doing some amount of work from your phone, but many of us think that's a bad idea.

Truly disconnecting from our work is necessary for our mental health. When I'm on vacation, I want to be on vacation, which means not working.

Again, maybe you don't want to actually fully be on vacation from work. I guess that's fine; you do you. But I don't think that's healthy for most people, and regardless of health, many people do just want to completely disconnect from work for some number of days.

You're basically saying to get a different job.

That's going to work in some situations, but it's not broadly applicable for many reasons. In particular it's way more work than the act of backing up 2FA and logging out of everything. So yeah, it makes a lot of sense for people to think that's not good advice.

This is the ideal, but in practice you need to own the business to live this way..