Work emails after holiday

[sanogo]

Just curious as to how many emails you would come back to at work after one week on holiday and what do you do about them?

Twice recently I've spoken to two people at work, they don't know each other and work in different buildings and both of them said separately to me that when they come back to work they just delete all of their emails

At first I thought they were joking but then I realised they weren't

The last time I took a week off I came back to seventy emails. The guy that I was talking to said he came back to a couple of hundred. The woman had been to Australia for 3-4 weeks and said she had over a thousand so deleted every single one

In a way it makes sense because it would take days if not longer to read and action them all. I guess if any were important they would chase you up?

I used to leave a list of people to contact but wish I'd used your standard reply to those emails I did receive

I like to take good chunks of leave for 5-6 weeks. I leave an out of office with people to contact in my absence and note I won't be reading emails that have come through while I'm away. I keep them and mark as read though. I also spend a day or two looking through them for important information that happened while I was away.

On a normal day at work I get up to around 120 emails, so there's no way to catch up on that sort of backlog from a long leave. Most leave emails are FYI.

My theory is, if something was urgent then they would have contacted someone else. If they still need it, they'll follow up when they know I'm back. I usually start with the more recent emails when I return.

If I'm unexpectedly away for a few days, then I come back to hundreds and that takes ages to get through as more come every day.

I write to say that any emails sent between this time and that time will not be responded to, please contact these people in my absence or wait until my return to the office to contact me. I started to do it when I had been off on sick leave for 2 months, came back to thousands of emails and almost had a panic attack about trying to catch up. Then realized if it was important people would make sure to tell me, so deleted the lot and - nothing bad happened.

That's so unhealthy! You need a work/life balance and boundaries.

I'd be so annoyed if my husband was looking through and dealing with work emails when we were on holiday.

I send CC mail to a separate folder, invoice approval notifications to another, so what lands in my inbox if only for me which cuts down some bollocks. It really depends - 50 emails a day is probably typical.

On a good note I have deleted the work server from my personal laptop so I can't sneakily bring work on holiday with me anymore. I'm such a control freak, it's awful.

I go through and mark as recs all the update ones that don’t need any action, teams notifications etc get dumped then the rest get put in a folder if I actually need to do anything with them. Then can go in when I have time and actually check them.

I'm going back on Monday after my first week off since I started my new job, and I haven't a clue how many emails to expect. This thread is making me nervous!

I did set up an out of office reply so hopefully it'll be OK. I like a pp's idea of sending out an email to check if their issue has been resolved and I might copy that.

I guess it depends on the kind of work as well as the personality. In my organisation that approach would not be an acceptable way to deal with emails whilst on leave.

I get probably 60-80 emails per day but I’m curious now so will count them next week.

I once emailed a senior person in the Police Supers Association I was working with at the time.
His OOO said, I am on holiday and your email will automatically be deleted. Suggested resending on his return if urgent.
😮
I was gobsmacked and in awe.... The power to do that!

Making notes of the people who divert to a holiday folder, like that idea.

Someone I used to work with once had an out of office along the lines of "I am in Portugal from X until Y. Please don't email me during this time as last time I came back to about 250 and reading these takes up the time I have left until I retire."

Some people thought that was funny. The service director who got that response to some staff communication or other? Not so much. Guy got a talking to when he got back to the UK.

What kind of jobs are people doing that precipitate 2,000 unread emails after one measly week off? 😯

Bloody hell. Some of these roles sound well cushy 😭. I'd love to answer emails for a day.

The type where people copy in all and sundry as a matter of routine, often unnecessarily.

Thankfully my workplace doesn't really have this culture but a lot of our clients do. Which means that once you're in contact with them, you're added to the 'reply all'.

Eg I want to visit them and email Bob to arrange this. Bob then decides I should also meet Sue when I visit so copies me in to the back and forth between them agreeing a date.

Also they need to book a meeting room so Bob emails Rita about this and again copies me in to their conversation about which meeting room, how long for, do we require refreshments, will we need someone to come and set up IT, etc etc and what was a simple case of me asking Bob if he's free for me to visit next Wednesday has turned into me getting nearly dozen emails that require no input from me nor do I really need to know that the arrangements have been made to host me because they generally are and if not, we'll just manage on the day.

I was off last week and probably got around 50 emails, which sadly is a tiny fraction of what needs dealing with in my inbox. Most will need to just be skimmed and deleted but the time consuming bit is picking out the minority that require an actual response from me.

But surely it depends on the job? Sometimes sending emails is the job, or a big part of it.

Eg if you have clients who pay for a service. Some of the emails I get will need hours thought, research and writing to respond to them. It's far from 'cushy' to spend a day answering their questions or solving their problems.

I would normally come back to 800ish emails after a week away, most of them sent on the Monday or Tuesday but slowing as more people receive my out of office. Love the rule idea to shove them in a different folder when on holiday, am going to pick this one up. I try to get through as many as I can but also operate on the basis that someone will follow up if I haven’t got back them, as my out of office always says who to contact if I am away.

I do some bulk deletions for seminars and IT disasters that have come and gone.

everything else is typically related to a task someone expects me and only me to do. I don’t have the kind of job that someone covers while I am on holiday. My work just stops and I pick it back up when I return. So I spend half a day to a day reading emails, discharging the small tasks, and outlining the larger ones.

What a ridiculous post - surely most service roles are to answer emails most days?!

It first relate to me but I'm appalled at those people who said they deleted them. They should have a system in place for the emails to go to a PA or something if they can't handle them. Or surely they can quickly skim the subject line and decide if they are relevant. Or maybe their job just isn't important enough to get emails that need action?
I email people all the time and have no idea if on holiday or a meeting or are out of the office for whatever reason. Sometimes you get a notification back if they are. Not always. I'm a client - and if my email is ignored I may just take my business elsewhere.

I'd say around 300-500 emails after a week off. We've wistfully joked about setting "your email will be deleted" out of office replies but I'm pretty sure that would go down like a sack of shit with our regulator.

I am a full time nhs hospital consultant. I come back to hundreds of emails and hate it. Can you explain how this makes my job ‘cushy’?

What line of work are you in, if you don’t mind me asking? Are you quite high up?

I couldn’t think of anything worse that looking at and sorting work emails when on annual leave. That is truly depressing.

I find the "Focused" view in Outlook is useful to do a first sift of emails and take all the dross into the Other view. That reduces my emails to the priorities.

I'm about to take a week's leave, so as already mentioned up thread I will:

1. already have advertised leave/volunteering absences in my auto signature
2. set my Out Of Office a couple of days in advance as a further notice of my absence
3. block out the first morning of my return to catch up on emails, but it doesn't always pan out like that!

I would never even consider just deleting all emails. There will be information in emails that help me quickly catch up on what's been happening. I just may not get to it immediately but I try and read them all eventually.

About 500-600 emails for a week off. This seems to die down if I take two weeks off, so after a fortnight, I usually come back to about 800-900. I guess because people get my OOO in the first week.

My OOO is quite detailed with who to contact in my absence, and I'll try and book out some time the morning of my return to sift and sort.

To the PP who said answering emails all day sounds cushy, it's really not. Most of my work is email based, with people asking for complex and detailed advice on governance and legislation, sometimes with multiple attachments and links to read. Responding to them takes significant thought and research. Most meetings require follow up emails.

I've not even been on leave, but I'm wide awake worrying about tomorrow's inbox

My MIL's out of office message was: I am OOO your email will be deleted. Resend after x date.

To be honest it rather shocked me!