I have always been annoyed quite a bit by automatic Out of Office messages. This summer was no exception. So here are my top reasons for not doing it.
- Nobody cares about your trip is Egypt really! If I am sending you an email, I am not on vacations. Do you really want to piss me off?
- Email is an asynchronous media. Nobody should expect a synchronous response. If you don't answer a message, a) you are not there b) you don't care: in both cases, there is no point in knowing you are having a good time with uncle Bobby by the lake.
- You pollute mailing lists. When someone, who probably don't even know you, send a message to a mailing list you are a member of, what do you think happen? He receives your vacations post card. Oh and since you are not the only one, he receives vacations cards from 20 other bozos as well.
- People forget to disable the out of office message. When you receive a message claiming a person is meant to be back 4 days ago, you wonder if he has been fired or is dead.
- Don't reply or send emails when you are in Out of Office Reply. There is nothing more frustrating than being asked a question by mail, reply within 5 minutes and receive a message like "I will not have access to my emails this week"
Please don't overuse this tool. If you need to set that kind of message, it means your organization has flaws.
2 comments:
I think a valid reason is to let people know you will NOT be reading their email. Nothing worse then a massive backlog when you come back. Email is async, but not weeks/months async. If you are going to be away for > 2 weeks, I don't think people can ever expect a reply (on the other hand, wading through email on return is one way to ease back into work).
For me - I understand Your reasons, but It's not the OOOffice that should be denied, but the way we operate it:
1. Do not put a detailed description of Your absence, You're just not there :)
2. Configure it not to reply to specific addresses
Why is that good? Because the sender of email to You - after 1 minute after sending knows that You will not reply him now.
In other case he would wait for one day, then start to investigate about what's happening with the guy or so. And when the OOOffice is ON - he knows that immediately and can take other tasks to solve his problem etc..
It's just more productive, its GTD! ;-)
Racjonalny Developer
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