[bobflorian]

This is completely unacceptable. I work for a small company of 9, with 3 programmers (me being one). On vacation we all unplug to the fullest extent. It's all about setting expectations, having redundancy and backups. In fact, the boss hired me so that he could do exactly this, unplug and leave the country to have a solid vacation. I tend to either unplug all the way, or make it impossible to contact me by either being somewhere remote. I haven't come back to a burning fire yet.

[mcv]

For every position in the company, there needs to be someone who can fill in if the need arises. You already need that anyway in case someone has a serious accident or something, so you might as well make use of that when people go on vacation.

[dathinab]

But especially for manage position this should not be necessary. Most small software companies will do just fine if run for a view weeks without a manager (as long as it doesn't overlap with the start/end of a project).

Also the problem is he is not asked to provide emergency contacts, he's asked to continue to check all his emails. Which for many people will mean they won't be able to get there had completely it of work and as such majorly degrade the vacation.

[e40]

With 3 programmers, I seriously doubt there is a backup for every function.

[TheCoelacanth]

Then they either need to tolerate less than 100% availability for those functions or hire more people.

[e40]

For a company of the size we are talking about, it would definitely by the former. Even at 20 people, it's not possible (financially) to have backups for every function and we have to tolerate downtime for people.

[bobflorian]

It's all about culture. Try to be the agent of change, or change your expectation on what you can achieve in your current role.