Time off: planned and unplanned

[polly_mer]

Recent discussions (here and elsewhere) regarding Spring Break as being a week or just scattered days (possibly TBA closer to term start or even planned as "surprise" breaks), whether snow days are still a thing now that so much is online, and the trade-offs in having a big planned outage for computer systems versus letting everything go until it breaks have prompted me to ask how you like the expected downtime to occur.

Perhaps I'm still recovering from the problems at underfunded places where the money would run out unpredictably before the end of the fiscal year (one year, no printer paper at all for the last three months of spring semester) and much prefer being to look up now the exact date next year the ability to purchase is suspended for a few weeks before the end of the fiscal year.  It's inconvenient that all the financial systems freeze (POs, travel, timecards, contracts) for end-of-year activities, but most of the time one can plan ahead to get things done.

Perhaps I've been heavily influenced by the just random breakage of the computer systems around me so that I no longer leave anything consequential to the last minute.  I remember not at all fondly the time 300 of us were locked out of the building in the blowing snow because we went to a seminar in the next building and then the badge readers to our building malfunctioned.  The times I have been locked out of my floor or office due to malfunctioning electronic locks are at least inside to wait for the fix.  The planned week of taking offline the computer systems or electrical work in the building at least means one can plan to spend a week writing on the laptop at home.  The unplanned no-access-at-all-and-we're-really-sorry-that-it's-the-fifth-day-could-you-work-straight-through-starting-midnight-on-Saturday-to-make-the-deadline-imposed-by-Congress blips are much, much more wearing. 

The meetings that need to be rescheduled during COVID time because too few people had internet access or the Zoom/WebEx/Conferencing systems just got overwhelmed is no longer amusing.  I am beyond tired of losing access to my email at random times, especially when I need the conference link.  I can write in my planner meeting times and places, but I can't always get there through no fault of my own.

What about you folks? 

Do you look forward to a Spring Break that is really just a few days here and there and possibly not even announced in advance?

Do you really like to plan and find maintenance better than random breakage? 

[apl68]

It's best to know to plan in advance, but occasional unexpected free days can be nice.

Of course those unplanned days off tend to be for bad stuff, like power outages at work or illnesses.  I've seen it said that it can be pleasant to be out sick if one is not TOO sick.  On some of my very infrequent sick days I've even felt kind of like that.  This year, though, I'm really hoping for no sick time off at all.

[Larimar]

Yeah, occasional unexpected snow days and the like can be fun, but the problem is you pay for it later. Dearly.

[clean]

We dont get 'snow'.  If we have a weather event, then it is quite possible that we dont have electricity for a week or more and may not have a roof for some time either! 

I prefer a "fixed calendar" to a hurricane 'surprise'

[Vkw10]

I prefer to schedule time off, since around here unplanned days are usually due to major power outages or flash flooding that keeps me at the office for hours because I can't get home safely. But I also enjoy looking at calendar on Monday, seeing that Thursday's calendar is clear until 1:00, and taking a half-day off on short notice. Being tied to the office from 8:00-4:00 M-F is a major disadvantage of being chair.