Linky

For those of us who live in email land, this is a refreshing look at the issue of what I call the "Penalty Box" you must go to at the end of any time away from office, let alone email.

Back when I worked in Silicon Valley, there was an story (probably true, but I never verified it, so possibly apocryphal) about a senior Intel exec back in the early days of the firm, who had earned a several-month sabbatical, and took it.

This was before the days of email. The story was, he came back and his desk was piled deep in letters, memos, packages, post-it notes, printouts, etc. He threw out every bit of it. His rationale was, it all fell into one of four groups:

1) Stuff that was urgent, and thus had to have been addressed in his absence. So, ignorable.

2) Stuff that was someone elses's work that had just been getting courtesy-copied on. He figured any of that that was still relevant, his colleagues would brief him on as needed. So, ignorable.

3) Stuff that was important but non-urgent (or else it would have been in group 1), which should have been addressed by his staff (he had a great staff, as the story was related). Already handled, and so, ignorable.

4) Stuff that was unimportant, and so, ignorable.

I never met the man, but he instantly became my hero.

I am out of the office and expect to have only infrequent SIGforum access.

Thank you,

sigmonkey

I've seen the "this email will be deleted" response a few times and view it as policy that shows that the company has healthy work/life boundaries in place.

That's actually a great idea.

I used to check emails even on vacation. Otherwise, I'd be buried in emails that came in at a rate of 300 per day.

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:
He threw out every bit of it.

This is my rationale for changing jobs every 13-15 years no matter how good the gig has become.

Clean slate - why yes, thank you!

I did similar with my voicemail when I worked in an office. My OOO voicemail basically said "I'm not here so press 0 to bounce out to someone who is here, don't leave me a VM because I won't get it"

Then when I came back if anyone was stupid enough to leave me a VM, I deleted it.

I think it's a great idea. Unfortunately, I see the opposite occurring. In fact, I got an OOO reply that I saved because I kept wondering why some people even bother leaving the office.

Here is the actual OOO message:

Hello,

Thanks for your email. I will be out of the office on PTO Monday, July 31st thru Friday, August 4th with limited access to email. However, I will be checking email each afternoon. If your email is urgent, please call or txt my cell at xxx-xxx-xxxx and leave a message and I will return your email/call as soon as possible. Otherwise I will return your email when I am back in the office.

Regards,

Kevin Xxxxxxx

quote:

Originally posted by KDR:
I've seen the "this email will be deleted" response a few times and view it as policy that shows that the company has healthy work/life boundaries in place.

Could only hope to work for such an executive who encourages such defined boundaries.

Of course, the entire O.P. article is premised on an out-of-office message as a result of "I emailed a professor ..." Academic motherfuckers need to spend more time with corporate execs who run their entire operation on the premise that the company is going out of business next week because you, the employee, missed an email.

IOW. +1 to the above.

Perfect timing as today I received the status e-mail from our executive's admin wanting a reply if we were working the week of the 4th of July (it's on a Wednesday), off but available by phone (need location & named back-up for in person meetings), or off and not available (need location & named fill-in).

Already had one dumb ass e-mail, I can't find any openings in your calendar that week. No shit Sherlock!

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
Already had one dumb ass e-mail, I can't find any openings in your calendar that week. No shit Sherlock!

I worked at one place that forced us to use Outlook to manage our calendars on a shared basis. It was not within the corporate culture to decline a meeting request. Meaning that every Tom, Dick, and Harry could book meetings and expect your attendance.

Systems and twisted corporate culture are no excuse for poor time management practices, though. I managed through that nonsense by booking my Outlook calendar with my own meetings, except for a few hours each week I kept open as an offering to the gods of mediocrity. I was willing to be shanghaied into minutia, but only for a fraction of my work-week, as unlike the corporate drones I had actual work that needed to be done.

With my calendar full, idiots couldn't book me into their meetings automatically - they were forced to actually interact and tell me what their meeting was for. If their precious project was in fact not a complete time-waster, I'd make them some space in my calendar and let their Outlook book me.