To ask my work to put an out of office message on my emails.

[midnightglow29]

I have never experienced this before, so I would appreciate everyone's experience with this. I have asked my work how I can set an out of office message for when I am on annual leave (please note it's a system I can not access to do this myself, and its a work email that is addressed to me only). The response was that we don't set an out of office message on our emails. So I am finding I am getting multiple emails from people with follow-up for responses when I return from work, and I have to start my emails apologising for the delay due to annual leave. Has anyone experienced this? AIBU to have requested this? I have had this with previous employers, so I have not come across this before. Also to note I don't work full time, and I am not allowed to set this or put this in my email signature to outline my working days.

OP says "Also to note I don't work full time, and I am not allowed to set this or put this in my email signature to outline my working days." so I'm assuming she also needs Admin rights to edit her signature, as well.

On a bit of a tangent, at the last place I worked we weren’t allowed to have voicemail. So someone had to be present to answer the phones at all times between 8.30 and 5.15. And if there was an all team meeting someone had to be dragged in from another department to cover the phones.

I am 99% certain that they're expecting you'll check emails on leave and non-working days, though they may not openly admit it. Can you ask a colleague rather than your line manager what they do to deal with coming back to loads of people impatient for a reply?

Who is ‘they’ in this scenario? Because it’s a legitimate issue to raise with management that it’s frustrating to their customers/clients (rather than to you).

If they won't set up an out of office, they should set up forwarding so that someone else can monitor your emails and respond in your absence.