
Should holiday email be deleted? - klearvue
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28786117
======
malgorithms
Related: Daimler has a PGP policy. Whoever works on their email likes to get
things done.

Last year I emailed a car dealer who worked for Mercedes Benz USA, and I got
an auto-reply from Daimler that my signature was unacceptable because the
expiration date on my key was too far in the future, and they wouldn't deliver
my message at all, unless I fixed it.

I know the salesperson had no idea what was going on with this - but as soon
as a contacted him with a signed message and a shorter-term subkey I generated
just for them, his outgoing messages started being signed too.

Then, a month ago, I got a notice from Daimler that my key was expiring and I
needed to get a new one on file with them.

I've been signing emails as a policy for awhile, and it's the only experience
of this sort I've had.

------
freshyill
I know there are things at my job that only I can do, even if they are
documented. If certain things will need urgent attention while I'm out, I'll
arrange to have someone cover for me.

I can understand not reading it, and setting the expectation with your
employer and coworkers that you're on vacation and you won't be reading
emails. That's very reasonable.

But just deleting emails? That sounds kind of nuts. I handle my email when I
get back. And I send emails to other people with the expectation that they'll
handle theirs when they get back.

If I have a question for a coworker, I'll email it to them. I don't expect a
response if they're on vacation. The question is now theirs to deal with, in
due time. By auto-deleting it, it reverts to being my problem. I'm sending
that email for the purpose of getting work done. In that sense, auto-deleting
it is preventing me from doing my work. And then I just have to send it again
once they're back.

Setting proper boundaries and expectations is the solution. If you're getting
so much email that it's an insurmountable task once you get back from
vacation, maybe your company needs to reexamine its email culture and
practices.

~~~
Nursie
>> If I have a question for a coworker, I'll email it to them. I don't expect
a response if they're on vacation. The question is now theirs to deal with, in
due time. By auto-deleting it, it reverts to being my problem. In that sense,
auto-deleting it is preventing me from doing my work. And then I just have to
send it again once they're back.

Yes, it's still your problem when the other person is on vacation.

Think about it the other way, you go away for two weeks. You come back to
hundreds of emails, many of which are questions. Most of the questions
probably got answered by someone else, or are no longer relevant at all. If a
question does still need answering, hell yes it's the asker's responsibility
to communicate to you that it's still important.

~~~
e40
_Yes, it 's still your problem when the other person is on vacation._

That is just naive. Many problems can wait until the person gets back. Yeah,
sure, if it's something that needs to be dealt with before the person gets
back from vacation, it's my problem. Otherwise, it is NOT my problem.

~~~
Nursie
>> Many problems can wait until the person gets back.

And many have gone away when the person gets back, then the first thing the
person has to do is trawl through a backlog and send out a bunch of "is this
still needed?" emails. Putting the onus back on the person that needs it is a
positive.

>> Yeah, sure, if it's something that needs to be dealt with before the person
gets back from vacation, it's my problem. Otherwise, it is NOT my problem.

It's your problem because you need input from the other person, so it's your
responsibility to chase it up no? Even with the backlog system there's a
greater than average chance that your email will be missed in amongst noise.

~~~
e40
You keep replying to the really, really unlikely case. I can't remember the
last time I got an "is this still needed?" email.

~~~
Nursie
Why is this unlikely?

Last time I worked a traditional job I would get back after a couple of weeks
away to find hundreds of emails. Many were corporate spam, sure, but the
majority of the rest were time-sensitive requests for my input which you may
as well file straight to trash, if you can figure out which ones are now
irrelevant.

Far better to have an auto-trasher and a notice to say 'ask me again in two
weeks if this is important'

------
freejack
I think this is misguided and would seem to reinforce bad practices, poor
etiquette and bad culture.

bad practices, i.e. if you want work life balance, don't check your email when
you aren't in the office. Manage your co-workers expectations that you won't
be replying when you aren't on the clock, don't work for a boss that has the
expectation that you are functionally on-call at times when you should be with
your family and friends.

bad etiquette, i.e. stop sending so much email yourself and stop responding to
email that doesn't merit a response. OOO messages and other auto-responders
are vile and just add to the mess - calendar requests, project updates, FYIs,
CC"s, etc. Most of this messaging traffic is just unnecessary and only adds to
the weight of one's inbox without making much of a contribution. Deal with
your messaging in your app - turn off the notifications and update options and
actually log into your calendar once or twice a day to view requests. Same
goes for the rest of your web apps (I'm thinking of project and task tools
like Asana, et al).

bad culture, i.e. be part of the solution, tell people when their email
practices are dysfunctional. We have this thing at our office where staff will
send out an email to 10 people asking "when is a good time to get together?"
which triggers an avalanche of 25 messages all with conflicting instructions
and requests about what might be the best time. I actively ask people to use
my calendar and ignore the rest of the email on the subject. People are slowly
starting to use my calendar for this sort of thing. Same goes for after-hours
email. If you don't want people to think you'll respond after-hours, don't
send email after hours! In the most extreme cases, if you can't change
culture, then find a better place to work. Life is too short.

Corporate policy along the lines of "delete email while you are on vacation"
just serve to reinforce all of these other bad practices. Email can be a force
for good, you just have to use it that way.

~~~
endersshadow
I think what many people fail to realize, in a corporate setting, is that
email is asynchronous communication. Email is not chat, and we need to
approach it differently. When I send an email, I expect an answer when you get
time--if it's something I need within 24-48 hours, I will call, visit, or IM
you if you're online.

~~~
freejack
Totally! this is exactly right. I work with one small group of people that
outside of our weekly status meeting, shares a ton of chatty one-liners via
email several times a day. It drives me crazy that I can't get them to adopt
Slack for these types of interactions but sometimes it is impossible to teach
a dog new tricks ;-)

------
forca
I agree with deleting the emails. The US is woefully behind Europe in this
regard. I would like to see a French-style work week, with the added goodness
of France's recent email/phone call law forbidding employers from contacting
employees after a certain time.

I would like, at the very least, to see a federal law forbidding more than 40
hours max. The world has really deteriorated in regard to family life since
the 80s. When everything started becoming 24-7, that's when the decline began.
I remember the sanity of the 80s whilst living in a couple of countries in
western Europe at the time. The pace of life was better, more family time, the
fun challenge of getting a popular restaurant reservation before they closed
at a sane hour. It wasn't all about profit then like it is now.

I make it clear to my current employer that I don't do nights and weekends.
When I leave the office at 1700, I'm unemployed. My wife and children come
first.

~~~
chollida1
> I would like, at the very least, to see a federal law forbidding more than
> 40 hours max

This seems like a nice sentiment but it comes across and being out of touch
with the general public.

Many, people need to work more than 40 hours, pretty much anyone who works for
an hourly wage that is around the minimum wage level, a week just to make ends
meet. If your law is enacted you've just doomed a non negligible portion of
the population to poverty.

How would you even enforce your no more than 40 hours a week? What about
anyone with a small business, or a lawyer who can bill $400/hour, should he be
told he can't make any more money this week?

We just ran a new gas line in our house, the plumber doing it was doing side
jobs to save up for a Harley. Your law of not permitting anyone to work more
than 40 hours a week seems to make the world a worse place than it is now:(

To clarify, the op said 40 hours should be the most anyone is allowed to work,
no exceptions, I'm fine with a law that says no one can be force to work more
than 40 hours. But limiting people to 40 hours just seems like a really bad
law.

As to the email deletion, I like the idea but it seems like a nightmare from a
compliance perspective:)

The biggest down side I can see is that most services only send out one out of
office email. What if someone is gone for more than a few days. I"m likely to
forget that they are out, or now I have to add everyone's holiday schedule and
all correspondence I want them to know about, to the list of things I need to
keep in my head so I can resend emails when they come back. I'm scared
already:(

~~~
fauldsh
I might be wrong, UK law is different than the rest of the EU (you can opt out
of the working time directive here).

That said, isn't it a 40 hour max on contracted hours? Otherwise it is
completely un-policeable. The idea is that you can't lose your job for
refusing to work past 40 hours (i.e. refusing to take overtime). But you are
allowed to work the overtime if you so please.

~~~
gambiting
40 hours/week is maximum your contract in the UK can oblige you to work.
Having said that, when I got my job in the games industry I had to sign a
statement stating that I voluntarily decide to work over that limit(but I am
not required to). And no, overtime is not paid.

~~~
DanBC
48 hours.
[http://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/workingtimedirective.htm](http://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/workingtimedirective.htm)

It is not legal to make you sign the opt out.

~~~
gambiting
Ok 48 hours. And yes, I was told I don't have to sign it, but it's one of
these situations when not signing it is ill advised. And in the games industry
if I was working more than 48 hours per week it would be because I want to,not
because I have to.

------
valarauca1
As a contractor at Daimler, and somebody who is technical works for a German
company this trend is catching on in a lot of Germany, and frankly I'm tempted
to try it myself.

It solves a lot of problems in a single blow, and most problems people have
with it can be answered by:

 _You shouldn 't use your work email for that_

or the opposite

 _You shouldn 't use your personal email for that_

~~~
cpwright
It depends, I think there are probably a reasonable number of automated
processes that could be messed up by something like this. For example,
reminders that you need to do some sort of training or HR process could get
black holed; creating a larger problem in the long run (e.g., instead of doing
it at your leisure you have to do it in a big rush).

That isn't something that falls under your "you shouldn't use your work email
for that", and it may be an acceptable trade-off; but it is certainly
something that could cause pain. Probably not as much pain as the number of
emails you'd wade through anyway, but something to consider.

~~~
valarauca1
Most automated processes thats report to one and only maintainer who's
currently on vacation sound like a problem. Responsibilities and event emails
should shift accordingly with vacation.

Also HR department invitations that do not have a secondary reminder, or take
place while an employee is on vacation sound like the issue of the HR
department not that employee in particular.

------
molbioguy
Vacation deletion of emails could be workable IF the only things that came
across your work email were work-related requests from real people. However,
for most people, the separation of work and personal (or pseudo personal) in
email is not so complete, and many emails are notifications from automated
(no-reply) systems. Deleting messages in these cases may cause more headaches
upon return than it's worth.

Being resolute about putting aside work and email while on vacation is a
personal responsibility, not an email robot's function. Put up a reasonable
out-of-office message and put down the technology if you're on vacation.

------
DharmaPolice
While an idea like this sounds appealing it seems to assume all emails you get
are a bother (either because they're irrelevant or because they're asking you
to do something).

I get useful emails all the time (or at least, emails that I should see) and
quite a few of these are from automated systems which don't give a damn
whether I'm there or not. If a third-party support desk sends me an automated
"Ticket Closed" email for a call I've had open for months then I need to be
aware of that, and deleting the email doesn't really help anyone (except them
maybe).

------
Gracana
How does this work when, say, someone from outside the company emails you?
I've been badgering the shit out of a bunch of different companies to try to
get a solution for a very specific and complex problem. I need to have good
relationships with their application engineers. Auto-responses telling them
I'm deleting their emails seems like the sort of thing that might make them
decide that my business isn't worth their time. Would outside emails be exempt
from this policy?

------
FryHigh
This is a brilliant idea. A corporate email account gets lots of emails:
people leaving, people joining, meeting requests, missing mobiles, cars parked
wrong, fire drills, etc. Not to mention broken builds, etc.

Holiday email within work environment where there is someone else covering for
you suould all be deleted. In the case of Dailmer, the out of office clearly
explains that the email is going to be deleted.

------
bachmeier
Seems that this defeats the purpose of email. You can send someone an email
and they can handle it when it fits their schedule. The auto reply is nice,
giving the names of others that can help them is nice, but telling them the
message will be deleted and that they will have to send it again doesn't serve
a purpose. Maybe this differs across cultures.

~~~
Nursie
Questions and problems have a habit of answering themselves or becoming less
important when a week has passed. Should I spend hours going through 'stale'
email when I get back, when 90% of it probably isn't important any more? The
first action for each one being to check that?

I had an old manager who didn't go quite so far as to delete it, but he didn't
go through his backlog after a vacation because "if it's important they'll ask
again". I quite agree with this.

------
stronglikedan
This seems like a solution looking for a problem. The proposed "problem" of
trawling through hundreds of emails doesn't seem like a problem to me.

I just go through and flag actionable items, instead of trying to answer
anything right away. I start with the newest messages first, so I can ignore
the thread of messages that lead up to the latest.

I've never spent more than an hour narrowing hundreds of emails down to a few
that still require my attention. A small price to pay to keep things from
falling through the cracks, because guess who is going to get blamed when
someone forgets to resend an important message to me?

------
nextweek2
I hate out of office replies. Usually they are just filling my inbox with
something I already know or don't care.

If I need a response within a short timeframe, I'd email the details AND use a
synchronse communications platform, like a telephone.

Use the right tool for the job, whats next the post office offering out of
house replies to people that post something to you?

------
snorkel
I knew of one VP who got away with trashing his inbox while on vacation
because he was the boss, but understandable that his email box was full all of
the time with stuff that he didn't need to know.

The logic is simple though: If your email is really important then it's
important enough to resend.

------
smackfu
If I deleted all my holiday email on the day I returned, then I would actually
have to work that day. I much prefer the current system of, "Sorry, I'm still
working my way through my emails" while I get back up to speed.

------
Roboprog
Despite the few odd drawbacks to this approach mentioned elsewhere here, I
think I speak for most of us who have worked in a corporate office when I
say...

FxxK YEAH!!!

Give the surplus email the "FAX machine" treatment! ("Office Space" reference)

------
qwerta
This sort of rules usually result in double standards. HR drones and other
departments have great work-life balance. While software devs are chained to
their desks, and can only take holidays when it suits company.

------
elsporko
"Sorry I didn't get your message. I must have been on vacation and it got
deleted."

Also what kind of holes does it create in email threads for conversations that
happen before and after the vacation?

------
ronnier
I don't just receive email on major holidays (let alone vacation), I receive
code reviews! Code reviews still roll in while the office is closed for major
US holidays.

------
smackfu
Doesn't this assume that people actually read the out-of-office message?

~~~
skrebbel
If you send a mail and don't even read the response, why the hell did you send
the mail?

~~~
smackfu
As mentioned elsewhere, most people just read the title that says "out of
office" and take action based on that. If it's low priority, they'll just let
it wait until the person returns. They certainly wouldn't expect it to be
deleted.

------
milge
It's a shame something like this would never fly in the US.

~~~
Igglyboo
Johnson spent his Christmas answering support emails, too bad you aren't a
team player like him.

------
lazylizard
we had a joke..if they can't get someone to take over you while you're on
vacation then the problem is not big enough..

