Who is here in August

Every May the same conversation does not happen.

The Gulf empties in July and August. Everyone in the building knows it; most of them have already booked. The UK-facing side of a distributed team does not empty, because London is still working and still buying. Somewhere in the middle sits an account that has to be watched every day, and a question nobody has asked out loud, which is who is watching it in the second week of August.

I have watched this from inside teams split across those time zones, and the honest answer, when nobody decides, is always the same person. The most junior one, who did not have the standing to book the leave, with the login and no brief. They have the password. They do not have the authority to move a budget, the context to know which number is a problem, or a name to call at eleven at night when the number is a problem. So they watch, and they wait for the founder to land.

That is the default. Not a plan anyone chose; the thing that happens because a coverage plan is a boring document and May is a busy month.

The version that works is written now and fits on a page. Who has the account each week, by name. What they may change without asking, and what they may not. The number that means call someone, and who to call, with a time zone next to the name. What is deliberately not going to be touched until September.

None of it is clever. It is the difference between a system and a hope, and the hope has a junior's name on it.

The summer coverage plan is made in May, or it is made by default in August, and the default is a person with the password and no brief.