It is _incredibly_ infuriating when people are out for 2 weeks and don't alert you to this fact. You end up wasting time waiting for a repsonse when you culd have immediately sought assistance from an alternative contact.
It's not spam. It's polite and helpful.
It turns out that the frustration you feel is the problem of someone not replying, it is you externalising your problems as other peoples fault. If you really need a response quickly pick up the phone, get a synchronous answer via a synchronous medium.
Not at all, unless frequent contacts are expected in which case you should be warned through other channels.
> You end up wasting time waiting for a repsonse when you culd have immediately sought assistance from an alternative contact.
If you need fast turnaround, use a fast turnaround transport. That's what instant messengers or phones are for.
> It's not spam. It's polite and helpful.
I completely disagree, especially when the numbskull using out-of-office replies can't be arsed to turn it off for mailing lists. It's spammy, impolite and unhelpful.
Mail server are supposed not to reply to bulk email automatically.
Obviously, this differs. At my actual job, email is the "need a response today" communication, while instant messaging or phone is "need a response now". Out-of-office messages are invaluable to know if someone is just out today, in which case things are fine, or they are out for two weeks, in which case I need to find their delegate.
Email is a great "electronic mail" system but a miserable trouble ticketing system. None the less, just like "Excel" is the corporate standard database system, in practice email is the corporate standard ticketing system. Of course it doesn't work very well, but incorrect application of the tool, is not the fault of the tool.
Think of an asynchronous ajax call. It may be ok to wait 5 seconds, but not 5 days.
I find far more intrusive the phone call that could have been taken care of via email. I deal with this because a community service group I work with has a lot of elder people. They like to call. Yes, I understand it's Tuesday, and we have a meeting Friday, but I can answer you in two hours (by email). Don't interrupt me right now (by calling). But it can't wait two weeks.