Out of Office Auto Replies. DUD

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I don't need to know you aren't there! I don't care if you get my email or not!

(arguably, auto-responders don't cover the requirement of "dealing" with an enquiry anyway - you can hardly say "we respond to all enquiries within SECONDS!" when nobody has actually looked at the incoming email)

Well in that case why not just forward the email straight to them instead? ;-)

xpost: JBR is right. I can easily log into the office network and check my email from home, but I stop myself doing it because when I'm at home I'm not at work, so I shouldn't have to do work stuff.

Because they'd be receiving dozens of emails, most of which are none of their business or field of expertise and some of which are likely to be of a personal nature.

As it happens I don't think I've had to deal with a FOI inquiry yet, they tend to go through the 'pr' department

xpost and that's why I put a contact number on.

one of my colleagues got in deep water over his reply when he went on holiday to holland, the PA to the gen manager had emailed him during his leave. They were a bit upset when they received this auto-reply: "i'm away on holiday sticking my fingers in dykes..."

I'm an idiot, how does that increase spam?

I think it's handy because you know you won't get a reply soon. *shrug* But then I rarely get auto-reply emails...

if spammers receive a reply from the person they're sending spam to, they know that your e-mail address is valid -- hence, even more spam.

My e-mails never really seem to be urgent enough to justify contacting my friends' colleagues, but I'm always tempted to phone up and say "Hello, yes I was trying to contact [friend] but I understand he's out of the office for a few days. Could you get in touch with him and let him know that I've found a great website with photos of dogs in bee costumes. Thankyou."

That said, I do use out of office replies for my work email, but I don't give my work email out to many people - so it's only internal coworkers who get the replies, and I assume they would rather know that I'm not just blowing them off.

So the autoreplys autreply to each other.

fun.

When you've got a large organisation with multiple branches and a huge demand load, it is kind of important. Argh argh, what hell awaits my inbox tomorrow...

So the autoreplys autreply to each other.

I think we have a system that recognises when this happens and prevents the flooding of hundreds of emails.

Is that rhyming slang?

it's very helpful at our work because we rely on email a lot within the department to communicate and there are a lot of emails to go through so it's good to know when someone is actually away, rather than just you waiting for a reply and never getting one thinking they're just busy.

lol. but i do that sometimes. just before i go on holiday i get my colleagues to "TEST OUT" haha my out of office reply (usually i get the colleague who's name i nominated as my cover to test ;) )

there's a choice on ours, some people forget to un-click the 'reply to all recipients' box.
clowns.

I love setting my autoreply - it's that clinching thing that makes me feel I'm really on holiday.

Because:
A) Not all email programs do this, just like apparently not all email programs have been equipped with the technology to only send one auto-reply per contact or not to send it to group mass emails.
B) You might not necessarily want everyone reading all of your email. Nor might your backup want all of your email, especially if a huge pile of it is spam and coupons from people you've ordered things from (none of my work emails have ever been spammed but quite a lot of my coworkers, present and former, seem to receive about 70 spams a day).
C) It is completely, completely dishonest and borderline unethical depending on your line of work. IE you should not be forwarding around potentially confidential business information all over the office without prior consent of the person sending you the message. If you have an auto-reply, it alerts the person you are out, who can then CHOOSE to contact your backup. If you have auto-forwarding, you've basically forced them to give information to someone they might not know or who might not be authorized to have this information, without their consent. From a business standpoint, this is not necessarily a great idea.

It's normally done on the server-side. Pretty much *all* email servers have the capability to do this, and it takes a few seconds for the admin staff to enable/disable.

You might not necessarily want everyone reading all of your email

Well, if it's your work email, then who gets to read your account isn't up to you anyway.

i'm not sure why our set-up does that, sending a reply to everyone who posts to the list, i guess it's to do with sinister beging set up so "reply to" goes to the writer rather than the list...

It is unethical, in my opinion, to autoforward emails to another person. But I spent the majority of my workplace career up til recently dealing with sensitive information that others didn't necessarily need to/should know. I can see, in a different job, where you never have to handle information like that, auto-forwarding email. But I still think it's unethical, from the standpoint that the sender is sending mail to YOU, and you are forwarding it without notice or permission to someone else.

Obv this does not apply if we're talking jobs where a person does nothing but general information requests etc.

This particular Auto Reply came back to me at seven o clock this morning when I replied to Smug Bitches supposed 'Urgent Request' she had sent to me in bold capitals (with exclamation marks!!!!! lots of them!!!!) last night.

I emailed her back to advise that urgent out of hours requests were dealt with by the Urgent Out of Hours Request Department (or some other creatures of the night) but I would endeavour to deal with her problem as soon as I had fully woken up.

Mexico? Hope she's lying there all hot, sticky and blotchy with sandflies nipping her vacationing butt.

(yeah, it can seem smug when you're at work and would rather not be, but everyone knows it's essential and required for covering your ass)

The two times in my life I've set up auto-response, I've written obnoxiously long messages, knowing that I'd piss a lot of people off but would amuse a couple (the majority of these things are super-threadbare and impersonal, and I wanted to avoid that trend):

"I will be out of the office from 4:30 P.M. on Friday, Sept. 2, 2005 unti 8:00 A.M. Monday, Sept. 12, 2005. Depending on when you wrote to me, I am either:

1) Getting ready to leave for a much-needed nine days off
2) Relaxing
3) Cleaning the house
4) Running errands
5) Clearing my mind briefly of all stress-inducing thoughts while reclining in a comfortable chair.

Rest assured: I am thinking of you and wishing I could read whatever message you have to share with me; rest assured: I will respond as soon as I am able. And together we will once again rejoice in the splendor of nearly instantaneous electronic oneness.

Ray"