Anonymous wrote:Best out of office autoreply I saw recently was:

I am on vacation until August 1st. All emails I receive between now and then will be deleted. Please contact me again after August 1st if still needed. If you need to connect with someone beforehand, my assistant, Sally Strutters, at 202-555-9999, can help direct you to the appropriate team member.

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The person really did delete their entire inbox on returning from vacation! Miraculously all those problems did get solved by someone else.

Must be industry dependent. I get tons of emails from outside my agency that can wait until my return but I do need to address them upon my return. Courts won’t be impressed that I missed a deadline that was communicated while I was out because I deleted my inbox!

Anonymous wrote:It is completely dependent on your workplace culture.

I was a fed attorney until recently. No one checked out for two weeks without checking email daily and leaving their contact information in their OOO message. I worked 20 hours/week while on an international vacation and was responding to emails at 2 am while in the emergency room for HELLP syndrome. I still got a middling performance review that year.

Do you love your work? Because honestly I would never work 20 hours on an international vacation. Don’t you want to just enjoy your trip and live in the moment?

Anonymous wrote:I’m a VP of sales. Like you say, ‘unless it’s a contract’. That’s my life. I plan vacations strategically around quarters closes but I rarely ever fully unplug.

But don’t you make high six figures?

Anonymous wrote:Best out of office autoreply I saw recently was:

I am on vacation until August 1st. All emails I receive between now and then will be deleted. Please contact me again after August 1st if still needed. If you need to connect with someone beforehand, my assistant, Sally Strutters, at 202-555-9999, can help direct you to the appropriate team member.

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The person really did delete their entire inbox on returning from vacation! Miraculously all those problems did get solved by someone else.

I delete all emails sent when I’m on vacation. I’m in a leadership role in a Fortune 500 company.

No one needs to be available 24/7 and everyone needs time off to decompress. People can figure out what to when others are out.

Depends on what the issue is. I am not C level but I do check emails on vacation. If something is really quick it is easier to shoot a quick reply rather than it sit and churn.

Some things are harder to explain/delegate for a short period of time.

I am on vacation at the moment, I work for the federal government. In normal days, I would take my laptop if we were traveling domestically, which we usually are as we typically visit family as “vacation” so grandparents can see the kids. It affords me a lot of downtime and I can and did work half days here or there.

Not this year. See you in 3 weeks. No telework? I’m out of office with no access.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best out of office autoreply I saw recently was:

I am on vacation until August 1st. All emails I receive between now and then will be deleted. Please contact me again after August 1st if still needed. If you need to connect with someone beforehand, my assistant, Sally Strutters, at 202-555-9999, can help direct you to the appropriate team member.

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The person really did delete their entire inbox on returning from vacation! Miraculously all those problems did get solved by someone else.

Wut. That is stupid.

I regularly copy or include colleagues on emails, not for their action, but for their knowledge upon return. I dont expect you to do anything while you're out, but you'll want to know about it when you get back.

I think what was key was that she had empowered her team to make decisions in her absence. And also that it wasn't in a life or death, company will fail or not kind of role. From what she explained she used to get dozens of trifling emails with people just checking things. She strengthened her team to handle those day-to-day items so she could work on more strategic long-term initiatives that ultimately created value.

Anonymous wrote:I have been qt my company for 2 years and have taken 9 total days off. I asked for 7 days off in Aug, 4 months in advance and was told no one knows how to do my job so it'd be great if I could remain available as needed. I make $79k.

I'm putting in my notice 2 weeks before I leave and extending my vacation for 2.5 weeks before my new job starts

Good for you. I'm a PP but make over $200k so I don't mind. For anything less than that, people deserve vacations and unplugging.

Anonymous wrote:If you are not needed, you will be replaced. If you are looking to be promoted, being available makes it look like you are ready for the next level.

So then what is the point of vacations?

I’m a VP of sales. Like you say, ‘unless it’s a contract’. That’s my life. I plan vacations strategically around quarters closes but I rarely ever fully unplug.

Anonymous wrote:I have been qt my company for 2 years and have taken 9 total days off. I asked for 7 days off in Aug, 4 months in advance and was told no one knows how to do my job so it'd be great if I could remain available as needed. I make $79k.

I'm putting in my notice 2 weeks before I leave and extending my vacation for 2.5 weeks before my new job starts

YES! I love this for you.

I have been qt my company for 2 years and have taken 9 total days off. I asked for 7 days off in Aug, 4 months in advance and was told no one knows how to do my job so it'd be great if I could remain available as needed. I make $79k.

I'm putting in my notice 2 weeks before I leave and extending my vacation for 2.5 weeks before my new job starts

There are certain things where it's easier to just check email on vacation then have someone else deal with it. For example, I'm a lawyer at a small agency, and if opposing counsel has an appellate brief due, and I suspect they could request my consent regarding an extension or an enlargement of the word limit, it's easier for me to just respond to that consent request than to let opposing counsel know to email a colleague, and explain to that colleague how to handle all the different scenarios that might arise.

Im a middle manager. I don't want to delegate a few things to my juniors as it would take too long to explain and they need access to certain systems. I'm certainly not making my boss's life harder when I'm on vacation. So I log in only to approve specific things like contracts and funding modifications in our online system so people can continue to work and not wait on me. I have taken international vacations and then I set up specific delegations to bypass my input on those things.

It is completely dependent on your workplace culture.

I was a fed attorney until recently. No one checked out for two weeks without checking email daily and leaving their contact information in their OOO message. I worked 20 hours/week while on an international vacation and was responding to emails at 2 am while in the emergency room for HELLP syndrome. I still got a middling performance review that year.