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The Best Vacation Responder Ever

I go off the grid four times a year for a week at a time. During these weeks I put up a vacation reminder that says I’m off the grid, not checking email or phone, but if it’s an emergency I can be found by my assistant Kelly. While I leave her email and phone info in the vacation responder text, she still checks my email to make sure that nothing critical is going on. While this works well, Josh Kopelman blew my mind with his awesome vacation responder a few weeks ago.

I am currently out of the office on vacation.

I know I’m supposed to say that I’ll have limited access to email and won’t be able to respond until I return — but that’s not true. My blackberry will be with me and I can respond if I need to. And I recognize that I’ll probably need to interrupt my vacation from time to time to deal with something urgent.

That said, I promised my wife that I am going to try to disconnect, get away and enjoy our vacation as much as possible. So, I’m going to experiment with something new. I’m going to leave the decision in your hands:

If your email truly is urgent and you need a response while I’m on vacation, please resend it to interruptyourvacation@firstround.com and I’ll try to respond to it promptly.

If you think someone else at First Round Capital might be able to help you, feel free to email my assistant, Fiona (fiona@firstround.com) and she’ll try to point you in the right direction.

· Otherwise, I’ll respond when I return…

Warm regards,
Josh

From now on, I’m going to set up an account at interruptyourvacation@foundrygroup.com and leave this in your hands. Powerful – and fucking brilliant.

August 31st, 2011 Categories: Work-Life Balance Tags: out of office, vacation responder, Work-Life Balance

http://maneydigital.com Mike Maney

What’s really brilliant (and unsaid) in Josh’s vacation responder is its power to identify those who don’t value your time. Sent to my interruptyourvacaction account and not urgent? Banned.
http://freepository.com John Minnihan

Trust. Assume it (and thus offer it) and then let folks do the right thing.

As Mike implies below (above?), this simple act can speak volumes abt someone’s judgement + notions of self-importance. But it also provides a real mechanism for those who truly, really need to interrupt your vacation for something.

My analog from back in the old days, when I carried a pager: I instructed folks to use ’911′ ahead of a callback number to indicate that the issue was urgent. It was rarely abused + worked well as a signaling device.
http://twitter.com/FundHer susanwilson

“Fucking brilliant” is right! I just tweeted ur post b/c it’s also something anyone & everyone can do AND it’s essentially free. Makes me wonder what the world would be like if we all actually said what we were thinking (or should be thinking if we weren’t so busy dealing w/all of the unimportant shit).

As individuals, aren’t we smart enough to filter out the noise and – very cutting-edge thought – TREAT OTHERS HOW WE’D LIKE TO BE TREATED. Is there some type of social analysis/spam algorithm that would filter out selfish bastards & stupid people based on who I 1/2 listen to or regularly ignore? ;D
http://twitter.com/FundHer susanwilson

“Fucking brilliant” is right! I just tweeted ur post b/c it’s also something anyone & everyone can do AND it’s essentially free. Makes me wonder what the world would be like if we all actually said what we were thinking (or should be thinking if we weren’t so busy dealing w/all of the unimportant shit).

As individuals, aren’t we smart enough to filter out the noise and – very cutting-edge thought – TREAT OTHERS HOW WE’D LIKE TO BE TREATED. Is there some type of social analysis/spam algorithm that would filter out selfish bastards & stupid people based on who I 1/2 listen to or regularly ignore? ;D
http://20minus.com Thanasis Polychronakis

“YOU WILL BE JUDGED”
seems like an appropriate disclaimer to add as well
David Rea

Sounds like a SaS play to me. InterruptYourVacation.com
http://david-noel.com David Noël

This is awesome! Thanks for sharing.
http://www.neverniche.com Clare Bear

Awesome.
http://www.bijansabet.com bijan

i am absolutely doing this too.
http://danreich.com danreich

Awesome!
Anonymous

+1 Clever!
http://twitter.com/brianylim Brian Lim

I think the “I dare you to interrupt my vacation” challenge is powerful and brilliant but also arrogant and unnecessary.

http://www.feld.com bfeld

Why do you think it’s arrogant?

http://twitter.com/brianylim Brian Lim

I’ve never had contact with Josh, so my comments are not about him.

I read this responder as a dare to interrupt a person’s vacation with something important and urgent, and I think it’s probably not necessary for most of the people who send you email. I interpreted this responder as “I get so many urgent messages that I need to create this mechanism,” and I thought it was clever but a bit arrogant. It might be because it reminded me of a very clever and arrogant boss who often played these games.

With your standard vacation message, people emailing you will know to contact your assistant IF there is a real urgency AND understand when your response is delayed for non-urgent matter.

http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com J. B. Rainsberger

Most people who do this do it precisely because urgent messages fall through the cracks or because they get a lot of urgent messages and are struggling to keep up. Not all those people are your arrogant (former?) boss.
http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com J. B. Rainsberger

Most people who do this do it precisely because urgent messages fall through the cracks or because they get a lot of urgent messages and are struggling to keep up. Not all those people are your arrogant (former?) boss.

http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com J. B. Rainsberger

What if you interpret it as “I trust you to decide whether to interrupt my vacation”? I read it that way immediately. I felt like he trusteed me to do the right thing.

http://ca.linkedin.com/in/ryanstgermaine Ryan St. Germaine

I love it and I’m shamelessly stealing it. Thanks for sharing!
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/ryanstgermaine Ryan St. Germaine

I love it and I’m shamelessly stealing it. Thanks for sharing!
Anonymous

I’ve used this method before too. A couple of notes for success:

Make the email alias only last as long as the vacation and delete it when the vacation ends (or soon thereafter). This way the spammers don’t get ahold of it and fill your box with crap (some always gets through even the best filters). Use a new alias every time you take a vacation – you can make a fun game of inventing them .

Be careful of autoresponder/vacation messages in your normal mail account. Be sure you deactivate them promptly, and be aware that at least some spam identification systems will label you a spammer if you have an autorespond. You may have some spam repair to do on return.

http://www.feld.com bfeld

Very good suggestions.
michael

What a huge waste of time.

Anonymous

Flipping awesome.

On my last vacation I bought a burner cell and gave the number to my boss and my toughest direct and told everyone they could get the number from them.

No calls, marked it in the W column.

-XC
http://twitter.com/RedRussak ‘Red’ Russak

Yeah…I’m going to use this too! “High five” for creativity!!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Narendra-Rocherolle/1108580 Narendra Rocherolle

Completely disagree. Neither powerful nor brilliant, just obnoxious.

http://www.feld.com bfeld

Why do you think it is obnoxious?

http://www.facebook.com/people/Narendra-Rocherolle/1108580 Narendra Rocherolle

Simple. The POTUS needs to be reachable. Anyone else who assumes that they need to be reachable is overestimating their sense of importance. If a vacation is important then take the vacation. If you have a hard time unplugging then implement a rigid structure/schedule ala bfeld.

There is no need to broadcast a perceived self-importance. In fact, it is a little obnoxious.

I’ll add too that when tech VCs do it, it sounds whiny because while they are supposed to be enabling all these wonder innovations and social connectivity they sound put out to be connected.

http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com J. B. Rainsberger

I find your interpretation circular; that is, it’s obnoxious because it’s obnoxious.

Please consider this: you have perceived the response as obnoxious; you could choose not to. What would happen if you chose not to?
http://twitter.com/Thecommich Michi Valeriano

Haha, good point. If you are THAT indispensable, stay at work. If you aren’t, for Heaven’s sake let the world turn without you and pay attention to the missus. Even POTUS has date nights
http://twitter.com/Thecommich Michi Valeriano

Haha, good point. If you are THAT indispensable, stay at work. If you aren’t, for Heaven’s sake let the world turn without you and pay attention to the missus. Even POTUS has date nights
http://www.bijansabet.com bijan

interesting perspective Narendra. i hadn’t considered that.
http://www.bijansabet.com bijan

interesting perspective Narendra. i hadn’t considered that.

http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com J. B. Rainsberger

Wow. It’s the opposite of obnoxious. Obnoxious is “Screw you, I’m not responding for two weeks and I’m giving you no clue how to work around that.”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Narendra-Rocherolle/1108580 Narendra Rocherolle

via dictionary.com — annoying or objectionable due to being a show off or attracting undue attention to oneself.
not giving an alternative contact if you know someone might need you would be more like irresponsible.

http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com J. B. Rainsberger

You’ve labeled the attention “undue”. I would leave that judgment up to others.

http://freepository.com John Minnihan

How so? If it is urgent, there’s a way to reach him that he’s guaranteeing up-front will be successful. If not, then don’t use it.

Maybe I’m spoiled, but any time I *really* need to reach someone, I have a few ways, inc their cell phones (that they tend to answer when I call). I like to think this is because of mutual trust. Without that, much (most?) of my contact w/ friends + business assoc. wld be sub-optimal (i.e. it wld suck donkey balls).

http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com J. B. Rainsberger

I’ve been teaching this as part of Free Your Mind to Do Great Work: give people an express lane to contact you, and decide whether or not to punish them for abusing it. It works very well.
http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com J. B. Rainsberger

I’ve gone a step further and quantified “urgent”. “If a slow response will cost either you or me over $5,000, then send an SMS to XXX… and I’ll respond sooner.” Sometimes people need to know what you consider urgent, and I found this quite effective.
http://blog.thecodewhisperer.com J. B. Rainsberger

I’ve gone a step further and quantified “urgent”. “If a slow response will cost either you or me over $5,000, then send an SMS to XXX… and I’ll respond sooner.” Sometimes people need to know what you consider urgent, and I found this quite effective.
http://twitter.com/Thecommich Michi Valeriano

When I communicate with someone I believe less is better. In which case this message should read “I’m on vacation. Call Fiona if you really need someone from First Round to help you.” No need for the guilt-trippy, passive-aggressive “I leave this in your hands” sentiment.
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http://roshanjoshi.com.np Roshan

goods idea. we have long holidays here in Nepal. during such holidays, we generally give emergency phone number details and emergency.contact @ ourdomain .com that would redirect to personal emails of related people along with main contact address.
Guest

Asking others to judge what might be important to you? Your assistant gets paid to do that, so no issue there. But the rest of us? Passive aggressive, immature nonsense. But it will work because most people won’t be in a position to call you out on it.
Rick

funny
JustSomeoneOnTheInterwebs

Wow. I feel a lot of the comments here are based on a misreading of the message itself. Could it be better written? Shorter, maybe a little less condescending? Sure, it could. But e-mail is notoriously terrible for conveying tone, and most people don’t have copywriters for their emails, so cut him some slack (unless he IS a copywriter, in which case, fair enough.)

As for accusing him of having an inflated sense of self-importance, I think that’s wholly misguided. The message wasn’t written to remind *himself* not to work during the vacation; it’s a reminder to *everyone else* that he won’t be working during his vacation. Therein, it’s actually a reminder to *everyone else* that their issue could probably be settled by someone else (hence, the “contact my assistant” part). People with an inflated sense of self-importance don’t pass you on to someone else; rather, they have out-of-office messages on the opposite end of the spectrum. For example: “I’m technically on vacation, but since I know no one else here can possibly do the things I do for this company, I’ll be answering emails and returning phone calls 24/7.” See the difference?

Furthermore, though it depends greatly on your job function, I’d be willing to bet that the majority of working folk would agree with me that most of the time, the people emailing you throughout the day DO really seem to think their issue is THE most important thing EVER and needs to be handled RIGHT THIS SECOND: usually because they’re behind on their own timelines, and it really IS the most important thing to them EVER (at the moment). Even the best-intentioned people, in the middle of a work frenzy, can forget this. Often. So I can’t blame the guy for inserting a little verbal poke in the ribs to remind folks to prioritize realistically.

As for the commenter asserting that connectivity professionals sound “whiny” when they ask to be allowed to disconnect for a while: Really? Why should we expect *anyone* regardless of job function, to be working 24/7? Especially when federal law (which in the U.S. is woefully subpar compared to the rest of the industrial world’s labor laws) dictates people MUST be given time off from work? I find this increasing demand on employees to be permanently on-call to be one of the unhealthiest and most disturbing facets of the business world. And that’s not going to change until we ALL start believing that an empty inbox isn’t the single most important thing in life.
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michael

I am on vacation and will respond to emails and voicemail when I return to the office on Monday August 29th, 2011.

If you need help with anything urgent before that, please contact my assistant Fiona (fiona@example.com) or call her at 124-456-7890.

Vapoor Wahaire

Bravo!

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Looks very obnoxious to me
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Grant Carlile

Brad – I love it. I heard you and David talking about it on the TWiTechStars when he came and saw you in Tuscany and now I’m seeing the follow through. It’s good to know and see that that happens.

Great auto-email response.
TJ

This is how you add hype to a fairly common idea – use best ever, fucking brilliant, powerful and whatnot to describe basic and overly talkative auto-responder. Meh. It’s nothing new. And usually it’s much shorter:

I’m on vacation till . Please contact . In URGENT cases contact me on .

No flourish, yes but there’s no need for any. No setting new emails, (un)plugging mailboxes from/in phones, etc.

Problem with emails is “too many”. Too many people email too many recipients with too many unnecessary things, in too many words – result is we spent valuable time reading the emails that we can’t do anything about. Instead of doing things that matter. And I don’t only mean working here.

People should have life APART from their job. IMO, at least.

Besides, if I’m on vacation, I should not be bothered with my job. I spend 8 hours a day working, often more. If I take my vacation, it’s not to work or deal with work. Unless my life purpose is to work. But that’s a bit sad, isn’t it?

In a good work environment, I can take vacation and go enjoy them, because I finished whatever I had to finish, and my co-workers can handle the rest. If I can’t – that only means something is off. If I’m that indispensable, that I cannot afford “the luxury” of vacation without working, something is way off. And usually if this keeps up sooner or later I’ll fail my job – I’ll lack rest or I’ll neglect my life too much and it will cost me.

Oh, and my boss should well know how to reach me in case of emergency, outside or inside of my office, vacation or no vacation. He also should know what IS an emergency, without me having to ask anyone who emails me to judge that.

I fail to see what impressed you (author, supporters) about this. But to each their own.
regards
TJ
PS. Yeah, this comment also should be more concise / to the point. Am not perfect.

TJ

Meh. Didn’t know that tag notation is recognized / auto-closed – hence the closing tags in previous post. Can be edited, if someone has the rights, and this post deleted. I don’t, so…

Hop Off His Nuts

I cant believe I just wasted 3 minutes reading this or posting this comment. I am truly worse off.
Hop Off His Nuts

I cant believe I just wasted 3 minutes reading this. I am truly worse off.
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Anthony Armendariz

Actually this is the best way to do a vacation responder or even your regular responder. The best goal is to try and not receive any email or any voice messages at all.

On your email responder: “I am on vacation. If this is urgent please call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx and I will get back with you as soon as possible. or…. “I check my messages once a day so If this is urgent please call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx and I will get back with you as soon as possible.

On your voice mail: I am currently unavailable please email me for a quicker response.
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The Best Vacation Responder Ever

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