It used to be simple: when you were on vacation, you weren’t in the office, and on your first day at work you leafed through the stacks of mail. Fortunately, more than half of the concerns had already been dealt with. With the introduction of professional e-mail accounts, however, automatic notifications became necessary to show the inquirer that the readiness to receive at the other end of the virtual world was temporarily interrupted.
Because tolerance at the beginning of the mail culture was not as great as it is today. The addressee of an e-mail was gladly called after sending the same: “I just sent you an e-mail and just wanted to make sure that it arrived.” The experience of the wormhole reality that something exists on two computers at the same time was in the nineties, not yet so solid. If you let the sun burn your stomach elsewhere without a notice of absence, the mail volume could easily double. But with the hint that an answer could only be expected from the sound of something, everything was good: Then the people knew that they could not do anything further for their request until then.
Anyone who answers emails after 6 p.m. has no control over their lives
The alliance lasted until the introduction of mobile devices in companies. First notebooks were distributed to the employees, then even smartphones on which the mail account was installed. And with the ability to quickly process a process from home, the employees’ leisure discipline dwindled, as is well known. Despite all the warnings from the healthcare industry, answering a business email after 6 p.m. is probably only frowned upon in Scandinavia. There one then thinks that the person concerned has no control over their social life, which is certainly true.
The hints are still there, of course, they have even been given their own role in the programs as “absence assistants”. And they are also diligently brought into play, some people turn them on themselves over the weekend. Funnily enough, an out-of-office notice no longer means that emails will not be answered. On the contrary, the answer is often much faster because the daily conference business is actually idle during the vacation, but under no circumstances is the control of the mailbox.
You don’t need a lot of imagination to imagine how people who go on holiday keep pulling their work equipment out of their pockets to count how many emails they actually don’t have to respond to, and how high the recreational value is. And then the inquiries are clicked on quickly, aha, well, you could do that quickly, it’s gone, and the X needs the answer. You know what I mean!
I know what I’m talking about myself and I’m even blushing a little right now. In fact, it’s pretty embarrassing to jump out of the box behind his own out-of-office notice like Kai and say: Ätschebätsch, I’m not gone. More than embarrassing: humiliating. It’s bad theater. As if one considers oneself indispensable. In fact, of course, it is the request that is essential. To keep the damage to a minimum, you could perhaps install a request assistant on the private account. And leave the work phone in the office.
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