this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
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Really helpful. Yeah, it’s already invaded my vacations and time off, but I’m working to create better boundaries moving forward. The problem is that there’s literally no one else who can answer certain questions or resolve certain problems and everything will grind to a halt if I don’t deal with it in a timely manner.
I mean, if they want more coverage, they can hire more staff. At some point, just as you stand up for your reports, you have to be willing to say no when it comes to you.
Yeah man, that's how it starts. You become the guy to answer question and before you know it you will be assigning tickets to yourself because nobody else can solve them.
Please be careful, I would not recommend that to anyone after living though it once.
This might sound twisted, but something that helped me take more time to myself was when a guy who was "the only one who could answer certain questions" with something like 30 years of experience in our field dropped dead of a heart attack at home. We figured out what we needed to figure out soon enough and his position wasn't filled for a year because five or six of us took up the tasks he was in charge of... My point being, no one is irreplaceable. Disconnect when you're not at work.
Do questions really need to be answered outside of work time? Are blockers identifiable in advance so a plan can be put in place. Not many things need to be done outside work hours and team members can cover vacation if something desperately needs to be done.
Yes and no? My team is scattered around the US, so if my east coasters hit a snag early, I genuinely don't want them in a holding pattern until I get around to it. Same for my coworkers on the west coast.
Some of the intensity of it has been that I assumed control of a team that was already severely mismanaged and had missed it's initial deadlines by a month.
Of course that manager got promoted to an area that better suited his skills and I was asked to step in and try to right the ship. Our final deadline is today and we only have minor and cosmetic bugs left (that we know of).
We have plenty of new features to add moving forward, but with the project back on track and the foundation established, I'll be able to set better deadlines for everyone's work life balance.
I will probably always have some temptation to pull long hours for my team scattered around the country, but it becomes much less urgent now that we're past our insane crunch.
Maybe it's hopelessly naive of me and the next deadline will also become a crunch, but I have some control over those future dates, so I hope it will be less of an issue.
Are they paying you for covering three timezones' business hours, or are they paying you for about 8 hours in your timezone?
That's a fair point.