Send your email again when I get back

[FallOfSloths]

Aibu to think this isn't good enough as an auto reply?

Medium senior person in work, off until Easter.

Sent her an email, and the auto reply says : 'I'll be back after the Easter bank holidays. I won't be replying to anything during this time, so if you expect a response then resend your email when I am back.'

For info, she's just on a 2 week holiday, not very long term absence like sick leave or parental leave etc. My email is about something that needs her input, so I can't ask one of her team.

AIBU to think this is a bit bloody cheeky? I don't need an answer straight away, but would expect to send the email now and get it answered after she returns. I don't really have the time or headspace to diarise when she's in work so I can email her then. Imagine if everyone did this! Surely the whole point of email is to send when it's convenient and the person doesn't have to reply instantly?

Surely the point of out of office is to stop e-mails (once one is sent) that aren't important. Then when you get back you trawl through and clear the backlog. A few times when I had a proper job I took a whole month off at a time...I came in the first Saturday back unpaid to get up straight so I wasn't stressed out on the Monday...it took 3hours but made sure I was good to go.

Personally I'd diary it, and send a quick email " can you look at my email sent on .... "

I’m just a bit confused as to why you’d send an email now when you know she’s on holiday and you have stated her team can’t answer it. This suggests that you are expecting her to answer the email whilst she’s on holiday? Have I got this right? Or are you just sending it now when it’s fresh in your head? On our system, you can select a day and time you want an email sent, that way, you don’t have to worry about remember to send it on a later day or sending another one and you’re not disturbing the person who is on holiday. If you’re sending it because you expect her to answer, you really can’t be annoyed at her, at the end of the day she is on her holidays. As for you ‘send it again’, she may not want to rifle through all the countless emails that have been sent during the two weeks so her thinking is, if it’s important they’ll email again. I kind of agree with her to be honest 🤷🏻‍♀️

What's the problem? What should she do?

Completely standard nowadays, and very sensible.

Some people get back from hols & delete all emails received while they were away... it's a standard email management approach. Though I am not that brave! But who wants to spend 0.5-1 day after a holiday reading all the crap to find the 3 important emails?!

That's standard practice where I work. You otherwise come back to a heaving Inbox and it's unclear what is still open and how urgent it is.

I think it's sensible. Send the email again when she's back.

It’s the best ooo reply. Just set up a schedule send for the day they’re back.

I agree she's being rude and inconvenient. However, you can just date the email now for her return date and resend it, then it will deliver to her when she's back without prompting. Flag the email post dated so it reminds you too. If it's really urgent, pre-block half an hour in her calendar for her to deal with it. (She thinks it's fine to dictate how other spend time, so it seems fair.)

That is ridiculous. Surely she just checks her emails when she gets back.

Hi @FallOfSloths - do you use Outlook? Even if not, I haven't yet come across an email system where you can't use an inbuilt feature to send emails at a future point in time.
With Outlook, before you click on Send, find the do not send before feature. Enter the date and time she returns, click Send. Your email will be sent automatically at her return date (and time, if you put one in. Else 00.01) without another thought or action required from you.
It's the new normal, but you can use the email system to your advantage.

I think that’s fine! How is she meant to know if it’s still needed or has been resolved while she was away?

We can see people’s auto-replies in Outlook before sending emails. If that’s the case for you I would expect you to wait and send the email after she’s back.

You emailed your boss on her holiday? Why?

I also don’t understand why you ‘don’t have the headspace’ to send it when she’s back. Do you really not have any way to manage tasks that need doing on specific dates?!

It’s fine. I know plenty that have a similar email response.
It depends what your usual volume of mail is. You can’t trawl back and keep on top of current load if it’s excessive. My old job was horrific for this and I would easily have several hundred + on 2 weeks. Really unmanageable.

Oh it’s a totally knobby response. Hate it. Why should your holiday create more work for me? But the quick answer is to just send it again right now but with the delay function, so it arrives on her first day back!

The alternative is that she has to go through all her emails when she gets back replying "Do you still need this?" because 8 out of 10 times, people will have gone to someone else or found some other way round the problem.

I can see her point. Many of my friends are getting hundreds of emails a day now with work, school, kids clubs, adverts etc. if you go on a holiday it could take you a solid week upon return to trawl through them all. This way means no one is going to send her two! She can start back afresh. (And probably receive 2000 emails at 9.02am on the day she’s back)

Someone I worked with once never took a holiday as he found coming back to hundreds of emails too traumatic.

Say she will respond when she is back.
It's very unprofessional and I'm surprised whoever she works for hasn't pulled her up on it.

What an odd thing to do. Everyone I have worked with just trawls through on their first day back.

I was going to say this - surely the colleague will come in and get all her emails sent to her at 9am on the first morning back, leading to exactly the same problem?!

But then surely you get twice as many emails?

I think it’s brilliant and should be standard practice.

Days are wasted coming back to heaving inboxes, half of which have been resolved in your absence.

I’ve never been bold enough to do as my mum did and delete everything the first day back: “If it’s important enough, they’ll send it again soon enough.”

I have never come across an email reply like this and I have worked in an office for 21 years. I am appalled, that seems very unprofessional to me.

No, because many people will have gone to another contact in her absence. Or, the email might be time sensitive - 'please provide your input to this meeting by COB tomorrow' etc. and no longer relevant.