Doesn't this assume that people actually read the out-of-office message?
If i see Out of Office in the title I just delete it.
Should holiday email be deleted?
11–20 of 74 posts
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#12It's a shame something like this would never fly in the US.
Johnson spent his Christmas answering support emails, too bad you aren't a team player like him.
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#13While an idea like this sounds appealing it seems to assume all emails you get are a bother (either because they're irrelevant or because they're asking you to do something).
I get useful emails all the time (or at least, emails that I should see) and quite a few of these are from automated systems which don't give a damn whether I'm there or not. If a third-party support desk sends me an automated "Ticket Closed" email for a call I've had open for months then I need to be aware of that, and deleting the email doesn't really help anyone (except them maybe).
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#14I agree with deleting the emails. The US is woefully behind Europe in this regard. I would like to see a French-style work week, with the added goodness of France's recent email/phone call law forbidding employers from contacting employees after a certain time. I would like, at the very least, to see a federal law forbidding more than 40 hours max. The world has really deteriorated in regard to family life since the…
> The world has really deteriorated in regard to family life since the 80s.
How much of that is due to both parents working, rather than the wife staying home and managing the family?
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#15I agree with deleting the emails. The US is woefully behind Europe in this regard. I would like to see a French-style work week, with the added goodness of France's recent email/phone call law forbidding employers from contacting employees after a certain time. I would like, at the very least, to see a federal law forbidding more than 40 hours max. The world has really deteriorated in regard to family life since the…
Your company giving you the option to auto-delete holiday emails and the government enforcing a 40 hour work week are very different things. The Daimler approach gives a socially-acceptable option for people who want absolute downtime, which most people seem to agree is a good thing; your proposed law would remove people's opportunity to work harder and in a more concentrated fashion to give themselves other options.
Your valuable time may be evenings and weekends with your family, mine may be being able to take a year out to travel or (although many European countries certainly don't seem to appreciate this), I may actually enjoy my job! In those instances, working a 70 hour work week may actually be what I want to do.
There's nothing stopping you having a corporate culture that encourages 40 hour working weeks, and if that's what works for you then by all means, find an employer who will respect that, but you can't expect everybody to be forced to follow that lifestyle, and you can't expect an employer not to take it into consideration when they decide who they want to hire.
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#16I think this is misguided and would seem to reinforce bad practices, poor etiquette and bad culture. bad practices, i.e. if you want work life balance, don't check your email when you aren't in the office. Manage your co-workers expectations that you won't be replying when you aren't on the clock, don't work for a boss that has the expectation that you are functionally on-call at times when you should be with your fa…
I think what many people fail to realize, in a corporate setting, is that email is asynchronous communication. Email is not chat, and we need to approach it differently. When I send an email, I expect an answer when you get time--if it's something I need within 24-48 hours, I will call, visit, or IM you if you're online.
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#17I agree with deleting the emails. The US is woefully behind Europe in this regard. I would like to see a French-style work week, with the added goodness of France's recent email/phone call law forbidding employers from contacting employees after a certain time. I would like, at the very least, to see a federal law forbidding more than 40 hours max. The world has really deteriorated in regard to family life since the…
I don't think laws are the answer. Can anyone say spending time with family and friends are top priorities all day, everyday? I wouldn't want laws telling me they have to be. Sometimes making money to support your family is more important than spending time with them. Some people don't have a family to spend time with. Some people don't like their family or have any friends. Some people like their work and that's where they want to be more often than not.
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#18I agree with deleting the emails. The US is woefully behind Europe in this regard. I would like to see a French-style work week, with the added goodness of France's recent email/phone call law forbidding employers from contacting employees after a certain time. I would like, at the very least, to see a federal law forbidding more than 40 hours max. The world has really deteriorated in regard to family life since the…
I don't think laws are the answer. Can anyone say spending time with family and friends are top priorities all day, everyday? I wouldn't want laws telling me they have to be. Sometimes making money to support your family is more important than spending time with them. Some people don't have a family to spend time with. Some people don't like their family or have any friends. Some people like their work and that's whe…
If one person works late then other people have to match them. So you end up with a tragedy of the commons/race to the bottom. Which is exactly the situation that calls for laws.
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#19I think this is misguided and would seem to reinforce bad practices, poor etiquette and bad culture. bad practices, i.e. if you want work life balance, don't check your email when you aren't in the office. Manage your co-workers expectations that you won't be replying when you aren't on the clock, don't work for a boss that has the expectation that you are functionally on-call at times when you should be with your fa…
I think what many people fail to realize, in a corporate setting, is that email is asynchronous communication. Email is not chat, and we need to approach it differently. When I send an email, I expect an answer when you get time--if it's something I need within 24-48 hours, I will call, visit, or IM you if you're online.
Totally! this is exactly right. I work with one small group of people that outside of our weekly status meeting, shares a ton of chatty one-liners via email several times a day. It drives me crazy that I can't get them to adopt Slack for these types of interactions but sometimes it is impossible to teach a dog new tricks ;-)
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#20As a contractor at Daimler, and somebody who is technical works for a German company this trend is catching on in a lot of Germany, and frankly I'm tempted to try it myself. It solves a lot of problems in a single blow, and most problems people have with it can be answered by: You shouldn't use your work email for that or the opposite You shouldn't use your personal email for that
It depends, I think there are probably a reasonable number of automated processes that could be messed up by something like this. For example, reminders that you need to do some sort of training or HR process could get black holed; creating a larger problem in the long run (e.g., instead of doing it at your leisure you have to do it in a big rush). That isn't something that falls under your "you shouldn't use your wo…
Most automated processes thats report to one and only maintainer who's currently on vacation sound like a problem. Responsibilities and event emails should shift accordingly with vacation.
Also HR department invitations that do not have a secondary reminder, or take place while an employee is on vacation sound like the issue of the HR department not that employee in particular.