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?

You surely know that most people don’t own their own business, though, don’t you?

Awful? Really? We take home around £20k net a month. Doesn't seem that awful.... with great rewards come great responsibilities

Brilliant. I work in the complaints department. It's great to know I have permission to delete all of the emails when I return. Afterall who wants to return from holiday to complaints 🤷‍♀️

I think the wording is a bit off but the message is entirely sensible. Written messages have no "tone" so can often seem more aggressive or offhand than they the writer intended.

However I don't think it would take you any longer to diarise a reminder to yourself than it does to start and follow a thread on here.

You’ve said that you know your own business. I’m an employee, like most people are (and clearly like the OP and her colleague are).

My employers don’t own me, they don’t own my phone and they don’t own my free time.

Seems sensible
I end up checking my emails the evening before I come back as otherwise I don’t have time to read and reply to any
Work in a contact centre and so I’m on the phone constantly with no time to sort emails out apart from before or after my shift
I leave OOO with alternate contacts but people seem to think only I can deal with stuff and insist on emailing anyway

But most of those 300 won't be schedule sent.

Many will be generic update type emails which will not be resent. Others will be emails to a set of people, one of whom will have actioned it. Others will have led people to contact someone else.

The actual proportion of that 300 that would arrive in her inbox at 9am on Day 1 is most likely pretty small.

But since you 'manage hundreds of email a day', perhaps you can explain how long it would take you to then manage thousands on email on return from two weeks leave. And how do you square that time with the other hundreds of new emails that you also presume to manage on Day 1 as well as your backlog of thousands.

Anyone in my team doing this would be fully supported - when my team members come back from leave, I want them going straight into actual valuable work, not spending three days clearing their inbox.

That's fair enough, then use the first day back to organise your inbox.

Don't tell people to resend emails they've already sent

I always find that approach ridiculous because yes people will chase you but you've deleted things you need to know or at least they are useful to know.

Prepare the email, save it to drafts, schedule yourself an appointment to send it when colleague is back, get on with your day.

Colleague is clearly not going to action anything sent whilst away.

Personally I think this ooo approach is bonkers, but if management don't have an issue there's not much you can do.

If it's urgent send the same email every day (once they're back from leave) until you get a response

Yep, of course. Forwarding with a schedule send even easier.

Which I agree with.

Im responding to your comment that everyone checks their emails in their phone while they’re on holiday. No, they don’t and nor should they have to.

If your company's complaints go to a specific named individual rather than some sort of shared inbox, and resolving complaints ceases any time you're off, your company has bigger problems to worry about.

Agreed!

Maybe not, but that's the world we live in.

Sounds great, good for her. Most of the emails you get after being away are out of date by the time you read them.

If you use Outlook just use the delay sending option and schedule it for yje day she's back.

It's not though. It is hugely job specific.

I do tend to keep an eye on emails when I'm off because I personally prefer to keep vaguely in the loop, and if things I care about are going off piste I want to be able to intervene early.

But most employees dealing with emails don't have to do that. I don't have to do it. I prefer to do it.

That does indeed sound like a crap job

Surely in the time it took you to post this on MN you could have just put a note in your diary to follow up.

Well not quite. If you’ve sent yours for 9:01 you’ve acknowledged that this one does still need doing and needs done by her. All the 0900 emails she gets will be done first, you know yours isn’t lost and then she can go back through them in reverse order.

NHS consultant here - my email volume is mad, and when I come back I might have to do my clinic or see patients on the ward on my first day back not sit in front of my emails. If it was actually urgent you really did need to get someone else to sort it whilst I was away and if you still need it looking at by me then resending it is the best way for it not to be lost in a massive mountain. Genuinely my emails are the most stressful part of my job. The sick people in front of me are much less of a problem!

Can you just send the email but time it for delivery when she gets back? Then you know you've done it

I’m on min wage, I’m absolutely not checking my emails when I’m off work
I give enough by checking them the evening before I come back and doing an extra unpaid 15-30 mins a day

Think it could have been worded better but agree now actaully on the premises of it. I took three days off and came back to 1,000 emails - some are copied some direct that i need to deal with, some of it has all ready been dealt with and some is generic i usually delete. It can take a couple of days to get through them some times and its even worse the higher you go up. That's why love xmas holidays as the majority of the world is off and you don't come back to loads of emails
I always remember the director of the company coming back from 2 weeks off he would go into his mails and automatically delete 3/4 of them, i looked at him in horror the 1st time he did it, but he said why cant i? I will have a meeting with my team now shortly and catch up with them for the updates, anything that was urgent more likely was dealt with and if not they will reply back and you know what he is right. Alot can change in the world of work when you take time off, My current boss doesn't do it, in fact he never deletes anything 🙄, but he gets so many the mails, he cant find things and it gets lost so he ends up asking you to mail him again with it
It obviously works for this person the OP is questioniung

I think is a brilliant idea. Sick of coming back to a days worth of emails to read, to find out only 3 were in any way relevant.
I've enough to do, thanks 😊