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You only have to do that if you're in a situation where your correspondent expects same-day responses. Mostly you should try to avoid creating that expectation

by pm215 5y ago

You only have to do that if you're in a situation where your correspondent expects same-day responses. Mostly you should try to avoid creating that expectation -- or where you do want to provide that level of service, eg for customer interactions, that sort of email should be going via some kind of role address or internal ticketing system so that it gets reliable rapid responses that don't depend on individual employees not happening to fall ill and so you can ensure cover during holidays or whatever. (I work a four day week personally, and I never set an out-of-office response.)

kbenson 5y ago
Not necessarily just for that. It's also useful for people knowing whether they send you something Thursday towards the end of the day that's somewhat time sensitive whether to expect/hope you'll get to it, or if that's something they shouldn't expect any more than sending it towards the end of the day Friday. It's useful in the same way as knowing when holidays are and not estimating when someone might get something done while including a Monday they will not be working. Not required, but useful.
- bmhin 5y ago
  I feel like many or most places already have the "be cool late Friday" mindset. Emergencies or critical things can still happen, but if possible maybe don't schedule a long meeting end of day Friday. Don't ask for something that needs turn around after the morning as people already are going to likely be in a wrap-up mode. It always feels like a very implicit "can this wait till Monday?" attitude permeates the day. And it's not just being nice, splitting a task over a weekend can lead to things being forgotten or missed or just the context being lost. Hell, I've seen places operate more in a "be cool all of Friday, it's the pseudo-weekend". All that is a long way of saying that that group feeling now exists a whole day before and it's important to communicate that.

by pm215 5y ago

kbenson 5y ago

Not necessarily just for that. It's also useful for people knowing whether they send you something Thursday towards the end of the day that's somewhat time sensitive whether to expect/hope you'll get to it, or if that's something they shouldn't expect any more than sending it towards the end of the day Friday. It's useful in the same way as knowing when holidays are and not estimating when someone might get something done while including a Monday they will not be working. Not required, but useful.

bmhin 5y ago
I feel like many or most places already have the "be cool late Friday" mindset. Emergencies or critical things can still happen, but if possible maybe don't schedule a long meeting end of day Friday. Don't ask for something that needs turn around after the morning as people already are going to likely be in a wrap-up mode. It always feels like a very implicit "can this wait till Monday?" attitude permeates the day. And it's not just being nice, splitting a task over a weekend can lead to things being forgotten or missed or just the context being lost. Hell, I've seen places operate more in a "be cool all of Friday, it's the pseudo-weekend". All that is a long way of saying that that group feeling now exists a whole day before and it's important to communicate that.