Being waited on
The Out-of-Office That Actually Helps
An automatic reply that gives dates and no alternative converts a two-week absence into a two-week block for everybody who depends on you.
Who is working when, for the people on this page
Us, as our signature block describes us
Five working days, 08:00 to 17:00
Us, as a client three hours ahead experiences us
By their Friday afternoon nobody here answers at all
two parties · four days of the seven are working days for all of them · Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu
The same organisation, described twice. Only the first of these two rows has ever been written down anywhere.
To keep remote-work decisions transparent, teams can employee activity reporting and discuss the resulting patterns together instead of treating activity as a private managerial score.
The surrounding operational question can also be checked against material from Dayspedia.
What an absence looks like from outside, on three different weeks
Us, Hamburg, with one person away for a fortnight
The automatic reply says the dates and nothing else
The client, Dubai, who needs an approval during that fortnight
Their own deadline falls in the middle of our colleague's leave
The shop, Taipei, holding a slot that expires
Finds out about the absence after sending twice
three parties · four days of the seven are working days for all of them · Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu
Two counterparties on two different weeks are planning against the availability of one person here, and the only thing either of them has been told is a pair of dates. One team's own job.
Most automatic replies say when somebody is away and nothing else of use.
From the other end that is a notification of a two-week block. There is nobody to redirect to, nothing to act on, and no indication of whether the absence affects the thing being waited for.
What it needs to contain
Four things, and the second and third are the ones usually missing.
The dates. Including whether the first day back is spent clearing a backlog, which it is.
Who to go to instead, by name, for what. Not a general mailbox. A named person with a scope: "for anything on the Riyadh order, Anna; for anything commercial, Peter".
What will not happen while you are away. If nobody else can sign, say so. A counterparty who knows an approval is impossible for a fortnight can plan; one who assumes it is merely slow cannot.
Your own working week, if it is unusual to the reader. Useful all year, and the absence is the moment people actually read the message.
The example
Away until 17 March; back in the office on the 18th and catching up for a day or two after that.
While I am away: Anna Weber can act on anything to do with the Riyadh order, including releasing drawings. Peter Lang can answer commercial questions.
One thing neither of them can do is sign off a specification change — that will have to wait for the 18th. If you have one coming, send it now and I will deal with it before I go.
The last paragraph is the valuable one. It converts a discovery that would otherwise be made on the 10th into an action available on the 4th.
The problem with naming a colleague
A named deputy who has not agreed to it, or who does not know the file, produces a worse outcome than no deputy at all: the counterparty writes to somebody who cannot help, waits again, and has now lost a week.
So the naming has to be real. Thirty minutes before leaving, spent telling that colleague what is live and what to expect, is what makes the line worth writing.
| What the reply says | What the counterparty does | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Dates only | Waits, or chases into the void | Two weeks lost |
| A general mailbox | Writes to it, usually once | Usually nothing |
| A named person, unbriefed | Writes, gets a holding reply | A week lost |
| A named person, briefed, with scope | Gets what they need | Nothing lost |
Telling people before, not during
The automatic reply is the fallback. The useful move happens the week before.
Anybody with something live gets one line: I am away from the 4th to the 17th, here is what I think you will need from me in that window, tell me now if there is anything else. That takes fifteen minutes for a dozen counterparties and it removes nearly all of the absence's cost.
It also reliably surfaces one thing nobody had thought of, which is the real return.
The first day back
Say when you will have caught up rather than implying that normal service resumes at nine on the 18th.
A fortnight's absence produces two or three days of backlog, and counterparties who were told "back on the 18th" and get nothing until the 20th experience that as a second, unannounced delay. "Back on the 18th and working through the backlog until the 20th" costs four words and is accurate.
When the absence is the whole organisation
Different problem and it needs a different message, sent earlier.
A plant shutdown or an office closure should be communicated to everybody who depends on it weeks in advance, with the dates and with what will and will not be possible during it. An automatic reply discovered on the first day of a fortnight's closure is how a counterparty's schedule gets broken, and it is the single most common version of this failure.
The absence that is not announced at all
Worth naming separately: the day off, the afternoon in a meeting, the week at a conference during which mail is read but nothing is decided.
These are the absences with no automatic reply, and from outside they are indistinguishable from being ignored. A counterparty writing on Tuesday morning their time to somebody who is in workshops all day gets nothing and has no explanation available.
The fix is proportionate: for anything short, nothing is needed unless somebody is actively waiting. For a day on which decisions cannot be taken and somebody is waiting on one, a line the day before costs nothing.
Tomorrow I am out at a customer's all day — if you need the tolerance decision before Thursday, tell me today and I will deal with it this afternoon.