oddeyed
Joined 10 years ago
Joined 10 years ago
The first time I just straight up asked my boss in a conversation and with a request in writing. I said I was unhappy in my life in general and wanted more time to spend on other things than work. There is legislation in the UK that means that employers must consider these requests and reply with an answer and explanation in a fixed time frame. They accepted and I worked it for about 4 months before other circumstances meant I had to relocate and leave that company.
The job I moved to was a start-up. After a string of executive resignations and engineering team redundancies I was left as the most experienced team member. I had another job offer in hand that I didn't really want but took it to the only remaining senior lead and asked for 4 days (at full pay this time) or I'd leave. They accepted in an informal way rather than modify my contract in this case and just called it "taking a day off when you need it". I would not recommend accepting this in general as it puts you in a vulnerable position for being punished for doing what you thought was the agreed deal. In any case, working 4 days at this job was a disaster because the company was such a mess and I had so little support that I spent my day off and my weekends obsessing about work unhealthily. I ultimately went back to 5 days in a more senior role to try to help right the ship but couldn't take the stress then either so ended up leaving.
I'm now at 5 days again. If I stick my new job out I plan to request 4 days after my probation period ends.
The decision for an employer comes down to retention - do they want to keep you enough to accept 4 days instead of the risk of you leaving? So if you have a manager who can understand your value and represent that to internal decision makers then that's the main key.
But if you like that kind of writing, then try writing like that! If you keep at it, your friends will at least to recognise that style of writing as part of you. :-)
For actually reading ebooks, I'm using Koreader instead of the built-in reader because I find the UI a bit easier to get my head around. I mostly use it for PDFs related to classroom learning, but have the odd epub knocking around from project gutenburg etc.
It has Google Play support, so I can use the Libby app to access my local library's ebook collection (including offline access to travel guides - so useful). I also use the Sefaria app to read Hebrew scripture (also supports offline). These apps tend to use the battery faster than Koreader and having scrolling controls instead of page-turning controls is a bit of a pain, but quite manageable.
I haven't tried the Kindle app, but I'm sure it would work fine.