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Should holiday email be deleted?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Should holiday email be deleted?

#31

Post by gearhart »

lmm wrote: post #18
jasonkostempski wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a really interesting problem, but falling back on laws to protect you from it seems to be accepting a sub-par solution without having fully explored the issue. This is something that ought to be solved by measurement and corporate culture - if you can properly measure your output, this time-based race to the bottom shouldn't be an issue, it becomes an output-based race to the top, and there's nothing wrong with that, you just bow out of the race when you reach your work-life balance.

Quoting PG on HN is perhaps a bit like preaching to the choir but this is very appropriate: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

Re: Should holiday email be deleted?

#32

Post by molbioguy »

Vacation deletion of emails could be workable IF the only things that came across your work email were work-related requests from real people. However, for most people, the separation of work and personal (or pseudo personal) in email is not so complete, and many emails are notifications from automated (no-reply) systems. Deleting messages in these cases may cause more headaches upon return than it's worth.

Being resolute about putting aside work and email while on vacation is a personal responsibility, not an email robot's function. Put up a reasonable out-of-office message and put down the technology if you're on vacation.

Re: Should holiday email be deleted?

#33

Post by gambiting »

DanBC wrote: post #25
gambiting wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ok 48 hours. And yes, I was told I don't have to sign it, but it's one of these situations when not signing it is ill advised. And in the games industry if I was working more than 48 hours per week it would be because I want to,not because I have to.

Re: Should holiday email be deleted?

#34

Post by Nursie »

freejack wrote: post #10

I 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…

>> 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 family and friends.

>> Corporate policy along the lines of "delete email while you are on vacation"...

This doesn't seem to be anything to do with the article..?

It's not about whether or not you should check email outside of office hours (NO!) or keep your inbox empty, it's about auto-filing ALL email to the trash when on vacation. You know the situation - you come back from vacation to find several hundred emails in a backlog that you then have to sort through. Most are no longer relevant after a week or two away, and if they are important people can follow up now you're back.

Re: Should holiday email be deleted?

#35

Post by forca »

chollida1 wrote: post #6
forca wrote: post #5

I 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'm referring to employers requiring more than 40 hours, not valid personal choice. I'm all for you "choosing" to work extra, with the caveat of double time on the paycheck.

Re: Should holiday email be deleted?

#36

Post by malgorithms »

Related: Daimler has a PGP policy. Whoever works on their email likes to get things done.

Last year I emailed a car dealer who worked for Mercedes Benz USA, and I got an auto-reply from Daimler that my signature was unacceptable because the expiration date on my key was too far in the future, and they wouldn't deliver my message at all, unless I fixed it.

I know the salesperson had no idea what was going on with this - but as soon as a contacted him with a signed message and a shorter-term subkey I generated just for them, his outgoing messages started being signed too.

Then, a month ago, I got a notice from Daimler that my key was expiring and I needed to get a new one on file with them.

I've been signing emails as a policy for awhile, and it's the only experience of this sort I've had.

Re: Should holiday email be deleted?

#37

Post by bachmeier »

Seems that this defeats the purpose of email. You can send someone an email and they can handle it when it fits their schedule. The auto reply is nice, giving the names of others that can help them is nice, but telling them the message will be deleted and that they will have to send it again doesn't serve a purpose. Maybe this differs across cultures.

Re: Should holiday email be deleted?

#38

Post by Nursie »

freshyill wrote: post #30

I 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 handl…

>> 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. 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.

Yes, it's still your problem when the other person is on vacation.

Think about it the other way, you go away for two weeks. You come back to hundreds of emails, many of which are questions. Most of the questions probably got answered by someone else, or are no longer relevant at all. If a question does still need answering, hell yes it's the asker's responsibility to communicate to you that it's still important.

Re: Should holiday email be deleted?

#40

Post by Nursie »

bachmeier wrote: post #37

Seems that this defeats the purpose of email. You can send someone an email and they can handle it when it fits their schedule. The auto reply is nice, giving the names of others that can help them is nice, but telling them the message will be deleted and that they will have to send it again doesn't serve a purpose. Maybe this differs across cultures.

Questions and problems have a habit of answering themselves or becoming less important when a week has passed. Should I spend hours going through 'stale' email when I get back, when 90% of it probably isn't important any more? The first action for each one being to check that?

I had an old manager who didn't go quite so far as to delete it, but he didn't go through his backlog after a vacation because "if it's important they'll ask again". I quite agree with this.

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