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To remind us – as if we needed reminding, as we vainly strive for ‘inbox zero’ – of just what a time drain email has become, Kay Woodward, UK-based author of What Would She Do?, has wryly channelled one of her book’s real-life heroines, Emmeline Pankhurst (and Pankhurst’s movement’s motto) in her OOO. “Deeds, not emails. That’s what the Suffragettes need. And let’s face it, I’m probably in prison anyway, so couldn’t reply even if I wanted to.”
Just say you’re away from your desk! Or if you’re out for more than a day, just say you’re “away” until XYZ date.
I had a colleague who simply never answered her phone or set up her voicemail. She still listed the number on her business card and email .sig, she just never answered or checked voicemail. When she took a new job another colleague inherited her phone number and when he went to set up his voicemail there were basically eight years’ worth of messages left for her that he had to delete.
That’s right. An out-of-office response is an automated email message that will be sent back to anyone who shoots you an email while you’re on leave. They are important. For starters, you don’t want to appear snobbish, and… you might even get some new leads just by leaving a well-thought-of out-of-office email message.
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A thing my employer does is when someone leaves, they just shutoff the email. So someone goes to the trouble of writing an out of office explaining that they have retired or accepted a job somewhere else and where someone can go for help and IT just nukes the email address 24 hours after the person leaves. Then whomever was contacting them has no idea where to turn next. It is a terrible policy.
But what should you do to keep the message informative, engaged and maybe a little festive?
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I am on emergency leave for today with no access to emails and phone calls. Hence, kindly expect a delayed response. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
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To my mind, it’s just a really bad idea to mass delete stuff that comes in while you’re out. You never know if those emails contain important (though non-actionable) information that you’ll need. You really can’t expect people to resend information like that once you’re back, especially if you were cc’d on something.
About the “overshares”: You linked to a previous column that mentioned this point, “Sometimes the over-sharing of plans can even come across as suspect — similar to how when someone’s calling in sick with genuine illness, they usually just say, ‘I’m going to be out sick,’ but fakers will generally give you a long list of overly specific symptoms, like they feel they have to convince you.”
There's no better feeling than Christmas approaching, but how do you achieve the perfect holiday... Get Your Office Into the Festive Spirit
Note that the poaching email does not have any other contact details other than the leaver's - this is to try and funnel all enquiries to the leaver as part of the poaching plan! More tips here.