Saturday Sabbath

With two young children at home, Olly Mann keeps one day per week for relaxation

- Olly Mann

My colleague, let’s call him Luke, keeps his weekends free for "family time". Or at least, that's what I thought. He does not reply to emails on a Saturday or Sunday, or answer the phone. If you text him, you’ll receive back the autoreply: "Luke has his notifications silenced". Come Monday morning, he’ll regale you with tales of weekend exploits: long lunches with friends, rambles in the Gloucestershire countryside. All very convincing.

Fair play. It’s not easy to keep two whole days of your life aside for leisure and relaxation, especially in this world of constantly-connected devices and international clients. Well done Luke, I used to think.

But then, last week, Luke let the mask slip. He has not, as it turns out, actually been "off" on Sundays: merely "out-of-office". For a few hours each Sunday, Luke has been surreptitiously sneaking downstairs, logging onto his computer and scheduling emails for the following day.

A chink in his armour! “It’s just much easier, working six days per week”, he confided. “There are so many people sending emails at the weekend! If I wait until Monday morning to respond, there’s a mountain to get through. This way, I have more laid-back weekdays.”