www.huckmag.com: Before leaving work for her Christmas break in December 2017, Dr Erin Williams gave herself a life-changing gift. Instead of setting her standard Out Of Office email, the University of Edinburgh lecturer wrote something different in the auto-reply box. She stared at the screen and paused as her hands hovered over the keyboard.
4 comments:
While I agree with the basic premise of this article there are a few things that I disagree with. First, the title is deceptive emails can hold much urgency and importance as part of their basic foundation and are the much more serious and important sibling of the text message. This leads me to my second issue with the article. While taking a break from checking one's email is essential to relax deleting emails during that period can create many issues. We live in such a busy world that many people will not be able to resend an email even if it is important. I feel that this article is targeted at the millennial, nine to five office worker and not to those in the theater world. If a stage manager deleted emails before reading them it would greatly negatively impact the show. Or if a carpenter did essential information could be lost. Ultimately taking a break from emails is very important however deleting emails in that time is not a smart idea.
Kaisa
It makes sense to want to completely disconnect, and Erin Williams has a very efficient way of doing so, but I disagree with the deleting of emails. I also think the title of the article is wrong and shouldn't be perpetuated, because there is no way to tell if an email will or will not be urgent, and to have a blanket statement like that could potentially lead to issues. Another problem I have with the article is that out of office replies don't solve the problem that an email might be addressing, as the problem is just pushed off. In our modern day society, things move so quickly that oftentimes it's difficult to catch up when you've been on vacation or leave. The methods used in the article could possibly make your life easier for a little bit, but could potentially make a problem later on.
I enjoy a break or vacation as much as the next person, but there is also some responsibility one has as an employee anywhere. I think a lot of the pressure to check emails comes from yourself, and it is very important to regulate and control yourself as far as email-checking. To entirely have an email deleted just because you are on vacation seems pointless. Why have it deleted when you can just not look at it? When you are holding a job I think you need to accept that you have a responsibility at all times of the year, even if it is your holiday. To just delete emails, when you have no idea of the importance of their content seems unwise. There is a difference between urgency and importance. Something might not be urgent, but it could be something that is important down the line. Instead of deleting an email, just read it later, in the long run that seems like less of a hastle.
I enjoy a break or vacation as much as the next person, but there is also some responsibility one has as an employee anywhere. I think a lot of the pressure to check emails comes from yourself, and it is very important to regulate and control yourself as far as email-checking. To entirely have an email deleted just because you are on vacation seems pointless. Why have it deleted when you can just not look at it? When you are holding a job I think you need to accept that you have a responsibility at all times of the year, even if it is your holiday. To just delete emails, when you have no idea of the importance of their content seems unwise. There is a difference between urgency and importance. Something might not be urgent, but it could be something that is important down the line. Instead of deleting an email, just read it later, in the long run that seems like less of a hastle.
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