Earlier, I offered a tongue in cheek post about my hatred of auto responders.
Within seconds.
Ding! Ding!
One of my favorite European collaborators messages - and I take some dramatic liberty!
‘Jason; you know that I use auto-respond to selectively manage email.’
I think - what?
‘people close to me know that I’m actually working, but this way I can delay responding without being rude’
I think - so?
‘It’s the only way to handle all the emails in a workday’
I think - dammit! This is genius!
Auto responder as a coping strategy, for email overload.
Apparently; on writing days or busy days or simply to clear time to think, some people use auto response to slow down email communication.
Where my post was written from the view of the receiver, my friend’s articulated the view of a sender.
My guess this is an unintended repurposing of the technology’s functionality - that designers never thought about - but savvy users turned into a smart work hack.
It lines up well with my student, Jim Burleson’s work, on technology repurposing & others work on feature repurposing - that suggests value is often created when users change use contexts or do the unexpected.
So what does this mean for me?
First, I will forever more be suspicious of out of office messages from my European collaborators.
This was an unexpected plot twist!
Second, I need to take some time to think more about how senders and receivers perceive messages differently.
While I stand by my hatred of auto responding, I think it’s helpful to revisit the spirit and purpose of established technologies.
If not in my research, then in mind applied understanding of their use.
Third, this means that I have to do a new study!
If I can find time, I’d love to explore how senders and receivers view auto responders in different ways - and if they are aware of the implications of these differences for users.
My sneaking suspicion is that the feelings differ depending on which side of the autoresponse you sit as well as where you geographically sit.
The one time I used an annual leave message, it was great - but it triggered one of my coworkers - who still mumbles - there is no annual leave in America! There is only vacation!
Ok. So feel free to use auto responders - it’s not like I could stop you from doing it - but for God’s sake, at least make sure that you have the dates correct!
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