The year I learned to use an Out Of Office

Or the politics of availability

I have just put my Out Of Office on for Christmas. It’s only the third time in my life I have done it and they were all this year. A trip to Australia in March to see my family (and do a little research for my next book), a weeks holiday in July and now. Why did it take me so long? Am I some kind of workaholic masochist? Well, no, there’s a little more too it than that.

The only full time job I ever had was twenty years ago, in New York. Since then, I have worked entirely freelance. As a photographers assistant, then a photographer and now as a writer and writing coach. Communications have obviously evolved over those twenty years. As an assistant I would head to Argentina on a shoot for two weeks and just not access my email. Somehow I always managed to book in work. When I became a photographer, my agent would just deal with everything. Because someone was always in the agency office and that’s what I paid them for. It was heaven.

All that changed of course. Suddenly we were all accessible all the time. Clients would email me instead of my agent. I would get CC’d on everything. I would be shooting and keeping an eye on my phone at the same time. Instead of a work trip being a time to be able to concentrate fully on the work at hand, I would be fielding emails about last weeks job and next weeks one too. Clients in my inbox nagging me for images, expecting me to drop whatever else I was doing to send them. Because increased access came at the same time as digital, which meant clients demanded more shots, on tighter turnarounds (all while our fees were dropping).

It wasn’t all bad. I was a new parent in the early 2010s and I could field emails from the playground or from under a breastfeeding baby. This helped with the general illusion that I had to create that I was not a mother or at least, that I could shoot like I wasn’t one. This was extremely important then because with still much fewer women photographers than men, I was very quickly dropped from clients if my availability became an issue. I was dropped by many even if it wasn’t an issue. Because they assumed I was otherwise ‘occupied’. Meanwhile I watched my male counterparts work remain completely unaffected by fatherhood. Being constantly available was my only defence.

I think this perhaps, gives a fuller picture as to why I had never used an Out Of Office on my email before this year. Over the past 14 years, my livelihood has depended on being available, even if it was an illusory availability.

It is not because I am bad at taking time off. In fact, as a long time freelancer I am better than many people I know at taking time off. I have never had a ‘bum in seat’ kind of job where I’m expected to stare at a computer between certain hours. I don’t get twitchy when I take time off because I am bored or worry I’m being left behind. But I have been in near constant fear, that I will lose money because I am a working single mother.

There is a narrative that is very popular at the moment that tells us that our constant need to be busy and be available is driven by our own feelings of inadequacy. That it stems from people pleasing and needing to feel significant and if only we looked inwards, we would realise we didn’t need to strive for success to be worthy. I understand this sentiment, I do. And I don’t doubt it is true for many people. But it is, like so many things, a little more complex than that.

I know that my fear of putting an Out Of Office on stems from losing work the moment clients knew I was pregnant. It stems from the assumption that I wasn’t worth contacting after I had a second child because ‘she’s got her hands full’ - better get a man in who has a wife at home to deal with all that. It meant for years I didn’t mention I had a disabled child while I was on shoots. And years to say out loud to anyone but my closest clients that I was a single parent after I separated from their dad. None of this came from a place of shame or worry about what people would think of me. It came from a very real fear of losing work. Work that I needed more than ever before.

I have written about how my work has shifted significantly over the past four years as my son’s needs have increased, his services changed and with it, the need to be more flexible than ever. I have had to take even more control over the way I earn a living. This has been both terrifying and freeing.

It has also meant I made a decision to stop pretending that I am available all the time. I tell people I am not available for meetings or calls or podcast recordings in the school holidays. I have pushed deadlines back with my agent and my publisher and been upfront about why. I don’t offer calls for coaching clients in the evenings or weekends, even if it would be more convenient for them.

It feels important that I be honest now, not just for myself but for other working parents and unpaid carers. I had very good reasons for keeping quiet when I did but it also comes with consequences for others. I want to be part of a shift in our working culture. I want a new parent in 2024 to be able to say, no, I’m not available that day, it’s one of the days I spend with my baby, or, sorry, but I don’t do any non-urgent work during half terms. I want that to be normal. I want it to be respected.

There could be a lot of different reasons for struggling to put the Out Of Office on. When you are a part of any marginalised group you often have to work smarter, harder and longer than your peers to get the same recognition and respect. Yet we still like to discuss work boundaries like they are an individuals problem, rather than a systemic one. It may not be our anxieties that are driving us to remain available. It might be the very real fear of not being able to pay the rent.

So my very ordinary, very mundane Out Of Office is a more significant, more political act than most will realise when it pings automatically into their inboxes. I understand if you aren’t ready to do the same. It has taken me years to get here. But what I hope is, that bit by bit, each one of us feels safe enough to do so.