So I had a child recently.  In the months leading up to the due date, I informed my boss and coworkers that I'd be taking several weeks off for paternity leave.  Obviously I didn't know the exact date it would start, but most people are reasonable and can accommodate uncertainty like that.  When the date rolled around, I emailed my boss and a few coworkers to let them know. 

A few days later, I took a brief trip to my office to pick up my laptop in the hopes I could keep up with a few minor things while I was out.  As I entered the door to my building, one of my coworkers spotted me and said, "Ah, just the person I wanted to see."  I happily informed him the baby had arrived, so my paternity leave started and I was just stopping in the office real quick.  He said a brief congratulations, and followed it up in the same breath with "the project manager was hoping for a status update on that thing you were working on."  My smile turned into a half-smile as I reminded him of the words I had just spoken, i.e. I'm on paternity leave.  His face started to show a little distress as he reiterated that a person had requested information regarding a task I had been working on. 

A little background on my job without going into too much detail:  I work in research and development.  Schedules routinely slip.  The atmosphere is largely relaxed, and work gets accomplished when it gets accomplished.  Most people aren't in a rush.  It's probably less than ideal in terms of productivity, but it is what it is.  That said, the work I do in general is fairly unimportant, and this task in particular was a side project I agreed to do as a favor.  Actually it was a favor to this coworker who hasn't kept up with modern technology and is unable to do things as quickly or efficiently as me.  I'm not mad about it; it's really not a problem for me to write some code to automate some tasks.  That's why I agreed to do it.  But as a favor, it held fairly low priority for me.  That, coupled with the fact that the originator of the task wasn't very forthcoming with instructions or specifics, signaled to me that it was of somewhat low importance. 

Anyway, I got to my computer at my desk and sent out the birth announcement to some coworkers.  I got several sincere congratulations, which I appreciated.  But my boss sent a reply that basically said, "Congrats, also what's the status on that task?  The guy was asking about it." 

The vindictive, passive aggressive part of me thought, "If you expected the task to be delayed a few weeks, you can tack a few more weeks onto the end of that."  But instead I sent an email to all involved that detailed the status of the task before I left, and an expected resumption of the task upon my return from paternity leave.  About a week later, I got another email from my coworker who said they wanted me to finish the task while I was out and that my boss "was traveling for one of YOUR programs" (actual quote) and so he was unable to do it himself. 

This pissed me off for a few reasons, not the least of which because my 50-year-old coworker sends emails like a teenage girl.  One reason is that I think birth and maternity leave and paternity leave and sick leave and vacation time and really any personal thing should be respected by employers and coworkers, especially for employees who are solidly reliable workers, and especially for first-time parents.  And especially when the work is unimportant. 

But the other, bigger, reason this pissed me off was because these two people, grown adults with children of their own, should've known better than to intrude on my time like that, and they should've had the balls to stand up for me and tell the project manager that I was on paternity leave and would complete the task when I returned.  If that answer was insufficient, they should've found somebody else to do the work.  End of story.  There's really no need to pester a person about a meaningless task during a vulnerable time in their lives, and grown adults should really be able to stand up for their peers.  I really don't think it's asking too much to request that a coworker literally just tell the truth to a manager.  It doesn't look bad on them, and if somebody thinks it looks bad on me, I don't give a flying fuck.  I'm too good of a worker to get fired (see the aforementioned about automation and efficiency). 

In the end, I ignored that last email and just didn't do anything about it, completely out of spite.  And when I finally got back to the office, it turned out they found somebody else to do the work. #business