"Sorry I didn't get your message. I must have been on vacation and it got deleted."
Also what kind of holes does it create in email threads for conversations that happen before and after the vacation?
Should holiday email be deleted?
21–30 of 74 posts
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I would like, at the very least, to see a federal law forbidding more than 40 hours max This seems like a nice sentiment but it comes across and being out of touch with the general public. Many, people need to work more than 40 hours, pretty much anyone who works for an hourly wage that is around the minimum wage level, a week just to make ends meet. If your law is enacted you've just doomed a non negligible portio…
I might be wrong, UK law is different than the rest of the EU (you can opt out of the working time directive here). That said, isn't it a 40 hour max on contracted hours? Otherwise it is completely un-policeable. The idea is that you can't lose your job for refusing to work past 40 hours (i.e. refusing to take overtime). But you are allowed to work the overtime if you so please.
40 hours/week is maximum your contract in the UK can oblige you to work. Having said that, when I got my job in the games industry I had to sign a statement stating that I voluntarily decide to work over that limit(but I am not required to). And no, overtime is not paid.
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#23I knew of one VP who got away with trashing his inbox while on vacation because he was the boss, but understandable that his email box was full all of the time with stuff that he didn't need to know.
The logic is simple though: If your email is really important then it's important enough to resend.
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#24I 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.
I'd go further. If its urgent, I'll chat or text. If its complex, I'll call.
I'd scatterplot all these forms of communication against latency and fidelity. Phone is lowest-latency and highest-fidelity (except for in-person of course). Email is high latency and high-fidelity. All the chat/text/twitter stuff is lower latency and spread across the fidelity spectrum.
They all have their place. I hate it when someone mis-uses them, for instance calling me and leaving a message. Phone is low-latency and high-fidelity; a voice message is the opposite corner (no ability to go back-and-forth; I won't see it for hours/days if at all). Voice mail is the worst possible fallback for a phone call.
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I might be wrong, UK law is different than the rest of the EU (you can opt out of the working time directive here). That said, isn't it a 40 hour max on contracted hours? Otherwise it is completely un-policeable. The idea is that you can't lose your job for refusing to work past 40 hours (i.e. refusing to take overtime). But you are allowed to work the overtime if you so please.
40 hours/week is maximum your contract in the UK can oblige you to work. Having said that, when I got my job in the games industry I had to sign a statement stating that I voluntarily decide to work over that limit(but I am not required to). And no, overtime is not paid.
48 hours. http://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/workingtimedirective.htm
It is not legal to make you sign the opt out.
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#26I 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 would like, at the very least, to see a federal law forbidding more than 40 hours max This seems like a nice sentiment but it comes across and being out of touch with the general public. Many, people need to work more than 40 hours, pretty much anyone who works for an hourly wage that is around the minimum wage level, a week just to make ends meet. If your law is enacted you've just doomed a non negligible portio…
I think the comment was geared more towards corporate America where salaried employees are often expected to work 60+ hours per week with no overtime pay or added benefits for the extra effort. At least I'd hope their idea for the law wouldn't limit hourly employees who need to work multiple jobs just to get by.
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#27I 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 would like, at the very least, to see a federal law forbidding more than 40 hours max This seems like a nice sentiment but it comes across and being out of touch with the general public. Many, people need to work more than 40 hours, pretty much anyone who works for an hourly wage that is around the minimum wage level, a week just to make ends meet. If your law is enacted you've just doomed a non negligible portio…
> Many, people need to work more than 40 hours, pretty much anyone who works for an hourly wage that is around the minimum wage level, a week just to make ends meet. If your law is enacted you've just doomed a non negligible portion of the population to poverty.
As a European what that says to me is that the minimum wage is too low and should be increased.
And equally there are people today who have to desperately hope that they get assigned enough hours this month to get out of poverty. Restrictions on maximum weekly working time would help those people.
> What about anyone with a small business
Less than 5 employees or a meaningful ownership stake and you're probably exempt, as with most of these kind of regulations.
> a lawyer who can bill $400/hour, should he be told he can't make any more money this week?
Uh, yes?
> To clarify, the op said 40 hours should be the most anyone is allowed to work, no exceptions, I'm fine with a law that says no one can be force to work more than 40 hours. But limiting people to 40 hours just seems like a really bad law.
Economic reality is that that distinction kind of disappears. If unpleasant practice X makes employers more money, and you can volunteer for unpleasant practice X, pretty soon the only way to get a job is if you "volunteer" for X, at least on the low end.
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#28I 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?
That is likely part of the perceived problem, but seems lacking. When the wife stayed home to manage the family, we had the husband working 40 hour weeks. Now, the gender equalization is not taking the form of the 40 hours being shared between the spouses, but rather the 80 hours shared between them.
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#29I 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…
And some people have family and friends, but work 12 hours a day because everyone else is. I am very happy that in the EU there are hard limits on how much you can work in certain professions, when overworking is actually dangerous to other people - like truck drivers. You can only drive for 8 hours max before having to take a mandatory 12 hour stop - and then there is another 24 hour stop that you have to take once per week. If you get caught driving longer than limited by law the fines are heavy so everyone sticks to them, and people breaking the limits cause outrage in media as creating unsafe situations on the road. Of course you can drive your own personal car for as long as you want, it's only commercial drivers who have this limitation.
Re: Should holiday email be deleted?
#30I know there are things at my job that only I can do, even if they are documented. If certain things will need urgent attention while I'm out, I'll arrange to have someone cover for me.
I can understand not reading it, and setting the expectation with your employer and coworkers that you're on vacation and you won't be reading emails. That's very reasonable.
But just deleting emails? That sounds kind of nuts. I handle my email when I get back. And I send emails to other people with the expectation that they'll handle theirs when they get back.
If I have a question for a coworker, I'll email it to them. I don't expect a response if they're on vacation. The question is now theirs to deal with, in due time. By auto-deleting it, it reverts to being my problem. I'm sending that email for the purpose of getting work done. In that sense, auto-deleting it is preventing me from doing my work. And then I just have to send it again once they're back.
Setting proper boundaries and expectations is the solution. If you're getting so much email that it's an insurmountable task once you get back from vacation, maybe your company needs to reexamine its email culture and practices.