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Subject Expert
Yes, you have to remember to periodically open your inbox. On weekends, I check my inbox about every other hour starting at like 10 am thru about 6 pm, regardless what’s going on with my notifications. I do the same on weekdays, just more frequently. It’s second nature at this point.
Thank you, both of you!!
Happened to me once too, awful feeling. Once you get burned like that, your spidey senses will go off if you stop getting notifications again. That’s the day I learned that my notifications would sometimes just randomly stop working. So if I don’t get a notification for a while on a weekend/evening, I’ll open the inbox to check.
On my first day at my first post-law school job, I was given an assignment that I never saw. Because the attorney sent it to my personal email address that i had used during recruiting. And I was not checking my personal email on my first day at my new job (like a good associate?) … so, I didn’t do the assignment that day (it was a quick and easy “can you do this by end of day today” request that I could have done). And then when I found the email in my Gmail, I had to explain why I never responded. It was awkward, but I didn’t get in trouble. 😅
I don’t even have notifications/badges on. That way I just check on my schedule instead of letting an email interrupt what I might be doing in my free time. But I do check every few hours.
I do this as well. There is no benefit to notifications if you check your email regularly. They just provide stress.
Enthusiast
I don’t open my mailbox periodically - I rely on notifications. Just try and make sure they’re working.
I get suspicious if I’m not getting email notifications…
I know I should have checked, and simetimes do if im just sitting around or doing something passive
If I go like 4+ hours without an email (my firm tends to have a lot of firmwide ones) I send myself a tester to check
This is like touching a hot stove. If this was one of the worst feelings ever, you should try to avoid it again at all costs, right? And if avoiding this awful feeling means taking out your phone and actually opening your inbox periodically, that seems a small inconvenience.
I mean why do you think I made a fishbowl post? To avoid this happening at all costs. I was hoping someone had tips for notifications but it seems I have to just remember to manually check. And don't get me wrong, I do this! But it's obviously not natural for me to think about it when I'm preoccupied in a weekend activity/other social things and talking to people. So in the future I'll set alarms to remind me to check if I haven't gotten any notifications.
Mentor
Get in the habit of checking for emails on your firm-issued phone. I check it constantly. This job has to become your life.
Mentor
A14, it’s not about the person, it’s about the practice. On any given deal, you work at the pace of the client. If the practice and the client require a quick turnaround, over the weekend or a holiday or whatever, do you really think the partner in charge is going to manage that deal around WLB?
I’m probably the best kind of mentor you’ll ever encounter—one that tells you straight up what it takes (and who’s willing to teach you). But don’t eff around with my time.
The expectation is that you’re in the trenches with me. And if we don’t need to be down there with shovels, believe me we won’t be. But the mindset has to be that you’re committed to being there—that work takes priority (for the most part).
Caveats of course. If my kid has an emergency, sorry I’m out and the rest of the team covers. That’s a given in even the most demanding environments. If that’s not the case for you, then that’s real toxicity and you need to GTFO as soon as possible. Otherwise, expect to be on if needed.
Do you work at KE? This has been a known issue with the way email on iPhone works for them since I started 9 years ago. Wild to me how it’s tolerated.
No but I wonder if we have the same issue. Our work apps, including email, are on a "partitioned" side of our phone so I'm wondering if that has something to do with it
I don’t have notifications on on my laptop (way too effing distracting) or my phone (terrible for boundaries for me; once I see an email it’s all I can think about even if I’m at the gym / making dinner / whatever).
I just manually check with frequency depending on what’s going on (if I’m drafting something I have to get out asap / before a call, I don’t check email a ton until that’s wrapped up; I check fairly often if I’ve snuck out during the workday to do something / if I’m expecting something / we have an upcoming deadline, signing, or closing; if things are quiet I don’t check a ton after 7 pm or so as I try to be present with my family).
I never have weekend calls out of the blue and rarely have urgent weekend tasks unless we are signing / closing soon, so on weekends I don’t check that often but probably end up doing so every 3 hours or so between 10-5.
I still check sometimes, just in case. I’ve been there where my phone or computer logged me out of Outlook and I only notice later. It’s just good to check at least every hour or two and go into your Outlook app.