When you work in tech, there's this pressure and expectation for you to be always available, or at least available after hours sometimes.
Hell, you probably have some coworkers who, when they go on vacation, they're like, "Oh, but I can still be reached by email. I'll still be checking."
I was never that bad, but I was still somewhat of a, "Yeah, you can reach me even after work hours," type of coworker.
And I'll tell you why I stopped doing that, but first I'll say there is, when you work in tech, a legitimate reason to work outside of work hours, and that is for fucking updates.
(And I know this because I'm saddled with that one this Sunday.
Got to wake up fucking 9:00, whatever, deal with the connection, etc.)
Things gotta happen outside of working hours because otherwise things would be horrific.
I get it.
That makes sense.
What doesn't make sense is checking your email at 5:48 for something that doesn't really fucking matter.
And by doesn't matter, I mean, if you check that, let's say, I don't know, 9:03 tomorrow, same shit.
That's kind of the crux of why I stopped being that often-reachable coworker, because it's pretty much never worth it.
Think about it.
Yes, there's some weirdos out there who, they'll be sending emails at like 7:48.
Fuck them.
For the most part, though, if someone sends an email at, I don't know, 4:42, right?
They're not going to expect this thing to be done by the end of the workday.
So if you read this at 9:30 the next day, it's not going to matter.
Nothing between when the email was sent and when you get to it is going to have mattered.
There is no expectation for that, realistically.
So if you don't feel like checking your email at 4:40 PM, that's totally fine because no one's going to check their fucking email till the morning anyway.
Like I said, you got some psychos out there who are checking and sending emails at 8:00 PM.
Don't worry about them.
No one else is joining them, okay?
This is especially bad on weekends for some people.
They're thinking, "Oh, man, I got to check my email and do this thing on a Friday at 9:00 PM or Saturday at 2:00 PM. Yeah, I'm sending an email responding back."
No.
I think that might've been the worst I ever got.
Maybe I would check an email after hours, maybe at 6:00-ish or something like that.
I don't know if I've ever gone crazy with the weekend stuff.
But some people are hooked on that, and it sucks because let me tell you something, especially in tech.
Let's be really real here: after 3:00, 3:30 PM on a Friday, jack shit is actually getting done.
So if some weirdo sends an email at 5:56 PM on a Friday, don't worry your pretty little head about it.
It's not going to matter until Monday at the fucking earliest.
That's just the main reason why I stopped being so reachable, because I realized if this specific thing, this communication, this task, whatever it is, if it had waited until Monday instead of whatever day it came out on, Friday, or if someone sent something on a Tuesday night, if I got to it on Wednesday, it wouldn't matter.
It wouldn't fucking matter.
And when I realized that this shit, it doesn't matter if it happens a bit after hours or even a bit before hours.
Some people also do the opposite.
They send stuff at 6:30 a.m.
Again, don't log on early just for those fucking weirdos.
Log on at your normal time, and then you see it just like everyone else.
Once you realize that this stuff is never that urgent, then the next step is to protect your after-work hours.
I stopped being online all the time, not only because I realized a lot of this shit didn't really matter till the next day, but because I want my fucking afternoon to be for my life, not for the job and me checking here and there.
No, fuck that shit.
I'm out of work.
I'm fucking done till tomorrow.
But if you're checking your phone and your computer and then emailing stuff after work hours, especially if you work remote or home, it's really tough for you to feel like, "Hey, I am off the clock," if you don't stop checking your fucking email or the other stuff.
You need a separation there.
You cannot be online all the time.
Even the best servers in the world, they only have 99.99% uptime.
There's still something that's got to go down.
The same with your brain, too.
Don't keep it up all the time on this work shit.
At the very least, be less of that online coworker.
Do you have any coworkers who are perpetually online?
(The ones you see emails from at fucking 8:52pm)
Or are YOU the online coworker?
If so, are you going to stop?
Till next time,
Kevin Tejada
P.S. No one's immune to this. Even I fell for this shit on Friday. I accidentally left my work computer plugged into my docking station, and I noticed a Teams message. Instead of ignoring it until Monday, I thought, "Oh, maybe it's related to that update that's happening on Sunday, which I have to do something for." And I looked at it. Shame on me. At the very earliest, I should have looked at it while doing the actual update on Sunday, not Friday at 5:58pm. So, there you go. We're not all perfect, but that's why you got to throw that work laptop away when work hours are over.
