Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Daimler's Solution for Annoying Out-of-Office Email: Delete it

posted by azrael on Sunday August 17 2014, @11:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the delete-all-out-of-hours-emails-too dept.

AnonTechie writes:

Sure, you can set an out-of-office auto-reply to let others know they shouldn't email you, but that doesn't usually stop the messages; you may still have to handle those urgent-but-not-really requests while you're on vacation. That's not a problem if you work at Daimler, though. The German automaker recently installed software that not only auto-replies to email sent while staff is away, but deletes it outright. If there's a meltdown at the workplace, you may not have to deal with it at all. The move affects about 100,000 employees, so it's clearly going to make an impact.

Related: Labour productivity levels in the total economy

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Daimler's Solution for Annoying Out-of-Office Email: Delete it | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 16 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by cafebabe on Sunday August 17 2014, @11:43PM

    by cafebabe (894) on Sunday August 17 2014, @11:43PM (#82421) Journal

    I remember overhearing a conversation between two IBM employees circa 1997. Apparently, one of their colleagues went on holiday. When he returned, he deleted all of his email and sent departmental message saying that if anyone had anything important, they should send it again. His colleagues thought it was an audacious move.

    --
    1702845791×2
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=1, Interesting=2, Total=3
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   5  

  • (Score: 2) by carguy on Monday August 18 2014, @02:01AM

    by carguy (568) on Monday August 18 2014, @02:01AM (#82445)

    I worked for an interesting prof when I was an undergrad (pre-email). He had a heart attack and was out for 6-8 weeks. The first day he came back, I happened to be in his office. There was a pile of mail (mostly interdepartmental) which he summarily threw in the trash. I never heard that there were any consequences from this "clean start".

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @05:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @05:41PM (#82688)

      They guy had a heart attack! I don't think he really cares about old mail. I sure as hell would not.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @02:02AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 18 2014, @02:02AM (#82447)

    I worked with a dude who did this. He would say 'if its important they will ask again as they knew I was on vacation my email program told them'

    I use a similar system. I empty my email 'inbox' box just before I leave. Then when I get back I scan thru it and see if there is anything I need to act on. 99.99999% of the time I delete all of it. I use the done/not done approach to email.

    Honestly its a good excuse to get caught back up with what is going on and goof off for 2-3 hours. As I get about 100 per day. A 5 day vacation is a decent amount of email.