Guy Goes On A Vacation And Gets Emails From Coworkers Who Want A Response Immediately, Says He’s Done With Corporate Culture
It’s no secret that workplaces can be incredibly exhausting: toxic environments, colleagues that won’t miss an opportunity to throw you under the bus, frequent burnout, greedy management, you name it.
Although it might seem that we’re slowly aiming towards bettering these cultures and continue to believe that someday soon employers will be able to provide a healthier atmosphere for their staff – we still have a long way to go.
Of course, not all organizations are guilty of having poor conditions; however, the majority struggle with a couple of things. This man, for instance, took to TikTok to share his thoughts regarding emails that folks send despite being aware that the recipient is out of the office, perhaps busy sipping on some margaritas.
More info: TikTok
The email culture in the workplace can be pretty strangling, especially when you’re trying to enjoy your time off
Image credits: @tanneremc
“‘No really, you should use as much PTO as you can!’ This is what I get for attending to my mental health in corporate America. I truly and sincerely hate everyone” – this man turned to social media to share his frustration with corporate life and the way it’s treating employees who go on vacations. The TikTok video has managed to receive over 424K views, 72.4K likes and 2083 comments discussing the audacity of some individuals.
Guy rants about people emailing employees when they’re out of office, goes viral with 424K views
Image credits: @tanneremc
Image credits: The Irish Labour Party
The TikToker began his video by saying that there’s nothing quite like going on vacation in the United States. He revealed that before heading off, he set up an out-of-office message that provided his colleagues and clients with a return date, and also warned them about not having any access to his email or his laptop.
He then began to vent about how he received “17 contentious emails [and] hundreds of others” that said something along the lines of “Hey, we emailed you but didn’t get a response back”. The man said that there should be zero expectations that he would be answering on his vacation, even if the emails got to his phone.
Image credits: @tanneremc
Image credits: Images Alight
It seems that an alarming number of employees don’t get what “out of office” means; surely when a person is taking some time off you wouldn’t bombard them with random work-related requests while being fully aware that you’re probably not going to get a reply? In fact, why are you even emailing them in the first place?
Moreover, the author of the video gave a couple of examples that carried a pretty negative undertone. For instance, “Mr. McIntosh, we will need to escalate the request if we do not hear back from you within 24 hours” – unless the person responsible for this likes to argue with themselves, there’s simply no explanation as to why this email even had to exist.
You can watch the video here:
@tanneremc “No really, you should use as much pto as you can!” 🙃 This is what I get for attending to my mental health in corporate America. I truly and sincerely hate everyone. #corporatelife #pto #mentalhealthmatters #ReadyForHell #outofoffice #leavemealone #fyp #tiktokswithtanner ♬ original sound – tanneremc
Fellow TikTok users shared their opinions on the issue
I’m on sabbatical right now. My auto-reply tells everyone their email is auto-deleted and to re-send it the date my sabbatical ends 😂
Managers: Time off is for relaxing/reloading/idling/whatever and *is* *not* on-call duty or standby for emergency duties. I once had a manager who didn't know the difference and he was the reason I quit. At least where I work on-call duty is paid work time - even if there is nothing to do. Only on on-call duty I would check my work e-mails after hours.
When I've been away and come back to e-mails while I've been OOO and then follow-ups to those e-mails, I always start off with something passive aggressive like "As you would have seen from my OOO, I have had no access to e-mail until "XXXXX" date. Please can you let me know who you directed the query to in my absence and I'll follow up with them" with everyone in the trail CC'd in. Cue the flustering and bumbling about as everyone knows eff all had been done..........not my problem :)
This is an American phenomenon, a European coworker announced that he'd be on vacation in 2 weeks, and someone asked "Will you have cellular coverage so we can call if we need you?" and his reply was "I'll have great cell coverage, but you can't reach me, as I said, I'll be on vacation, don't you know what vacation is?"
*American corporate culture. An American YouTuber came to my country and her brain exploded.
Oh, this happens in Europe too, though not as often. One of the managers I work with is the kind of guy who doesn't respect people's time off and I've met more than a few like him. These types are always in upper management. It's a temporary assignment and I can't wait to be done with him.
Load More Replies...
When the pandemic hit, the company I worked for wanted me to link my personal cellphone to the company number, and take work calls from customers on it while working from home. No. F*****g. Way. I was not going to have customers calling me on my cell at all hours—-who would probably still be calling me at my number now, two years after I left! I used my unused landline, got a temporary Google phone number specifically for work (which I stopped after I quit), and used that instead. I refuse to open myself up to never being able to disconnect from work by allowing access to my personal cellphone number. Same goes for emails. I will create an email address specifically for work contact, and not look at it at all on my off hours (people will send emails that will let them know when they’re viewed, telling them you’re doing some work-related stuff, so they take that as permission to hound you, so f**k that).
When I was going on medical leave a manager asked if they could contact me if they had any problems...that's actually illegal. When I talked to my dr office about it, they said to refer anyone with that question to them and they "will explain what the word leave means".
Made the mistake of giving my cell number to a select few when I started at my current job. They were friendly and I wanted to fit on. boy! Was that a mistake! Needless to say I changed my number ( been wanting to for a long time anyways) some workers try to guilt trip me for me having a "healthy" work-life balance. only my bosses have my personal. If it's really an emergency, they are the ones who would cal me. Everyone else can way after the weekend
Ooohhh wait until your SO texts and when you don't respond within seconds blows a nut. I don't have my phone on me 24/7 especially when I am asleep. It's ludicrous for people to think I am hooked on my phone just because they happen to be.
As long as i'm not being paid for being on call 24/7 I refuse to be excepted to answer my phone or email when I'm off work. Especially not on vacation. I absolutely hate workplaces that feel they are entitled to your whole life. Most people work to live - not the other way around.
My husband got called the day before our wedding and was reamed out by his boss about some sort of training that needed to be completed before we got back from our honeymoon 3 weeks later. Training that the company had just been notified about a couple days prior after his vacation started. Got him so upset that he couldn't sleep that night. We got back and then found out the training wasn't required for managers. If I was a person with less self control...
If you are off, then you are not contactable unless you are C-Suite but then they get big money. My manager and I have an agreement, if one of us is off the other can only reach out if there is a major work incident. Other than that no contact. No-one else at work has my number.
I start a new job on Monday. One of the things that came up during the interview, was that it's a 7.5 hour day and that's it. No overtime and no weekends. :D The fact that it came up, and not from me, shows me that they are also strict on this. I love it. :D
My work did bother me when I was long term sick since they wanted to make sure I got to apply for which vacation period I wanted and which schedule group I wanted. Well bother is a strong word, but they went out of their way to make sure I knew I needed to pick in case I forgot. I do love living in one of the so called socialist hells.
If I know someone is out, I will make sure to put in something don't I don't expect a response until they get back, I just wanted to ask before I forgot our something. If the person does respond, I usually end up being like "Why are you here right now? You are supposed to be on vacation. Get out of here. You can take care of this when you get back. Go enjoy your vacation."
I remember when computers were first coming into use in the work place and they said that emails would create less paper and less work. Yeah I didn’t think so then.
Why on earth would anyone expect a reply when you get an automatic reply saying they are out of the office. There’s almost always a person to cover while the person is out of the office. I can’t understand how a company can expect this of their employees. My husband works in this type of arena and is always setting limits on others. He is always coaching the newer people to set limits too and hopefully some will.
That's why I stick to working for government entities...on the RARE occasions that they reached out to me when out of the office, it was for something really important and they automatically converted it to paid time which saved me some vacation time.
Years back, when few had cellphones or laptops, my supervisor told me to call work daily (1-800 number) during my vacation, in case I needed to solve a problem. Never mind that I was on the other side of the country and I was the least experienced on my team. After three days of calls, my supervisor told me to stop calling.
I was on vacation when the recruitment company I formally worked for asked me to help out as one of the their biggest clients had gone under. They asked me to create lots of social media campaigns and marketing material for help to find jobs for all these employees that were losing their jobs all while I was on holiday. I get back to work the following week expecting a big thank you but instead I get laid off as they had to make job cuts themselves due to losing a big contract. Never did get any thanks either for helping out while I was supposed to be on vacation
On my away notice I say clearly I will not be available, please contact this person instead, and if you have not heard back from me by whatever date, please contact me. I have a few people in other departments that only want to work with me so they are willing to wait the two weeks to hear back from me specifically and that is fine, they wait.
Not all employers are evil :) I am the employer who gives employees heck when they respond to messages/emails while on vacation and/or message a colleague while on a vacation day. They may be copied on something so they can be in the loop when they get back but I do not want them to be checking and I do not want a response while they are away. When I tell them to stop I get a "Yes, I know but I just..." .
I am not sure this is a problem related to US company culture. I work in Europe and have experienced in many companies how, even if “respecting work life balance” was touted as a key face value, in reality “hard working” is the way to climb the ladder. The difference I see between US and Europe is: in EU if you do respect your work life balance, you do not climb the ladder. In US, you get fired.
My supervisor recently interrupted my PTO to tell me of our office being vandalized. A full grown man can't handle a broken window without my input???? I was on my way to an appointment and just told him I had somewhere to be.
I worked for a very small company (5 employees) with single owner. We never called him when he was on vacation, and he never called us. Except the time one of my colleagues thought he texted his gf "a client has given me a bottle of champagne, fill the bath with bubbles, light the candles, get an ice bucket and glasses ready." Reply from the boss "I assume this is not meant for me!"
You can't control what others do, only your response. Set an automatic reply when you're away saying and will respond by X date after you return. For work always leave an alternative contact if there is one (your manager, a coworker) Then forget about it! People do get a reply, you've done your part. Whatever they do with that is their issue, Don't make it your problem by getting upset. Don't even look at your emails if that's better for you. You can let people send as many emails as they like without taking that on as an emotional issue. You're right, they are wrong to do it but don't give them the power to trigger you. Work must go on while you're away and the company should have provisions for that to happen.
I retired a couple of months ago. For PTO, management was adamant that we put an OOO message up, shut the phone off, put it in a drawer and relax. Best company I ever worked for.
Wow! When I leave work at the end of every shift, I treat my time like I don't have a job or any kind of work responsibility, until I'm at work again on my next shift! If managers cannot respect my boundaries, I find a new job because I'm not at work to be a slave 24/7 and a healthy life-work balance is important.
Looks like the corporate culture at this poor fellow's company doesn't know how to set vacation return emails in the settings for the email platform they use. Gmail-just go to settings and set up the dates for your vacation so the senders get a return email that you are on vacation and to whom to direct their needs to in the company. Poor man's company obviously is not aware of professional email behavior. Shame on them.
Tell me you are middle management without telling me you are middle management.
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Did you read the text? He specifically details how he has an Out Of Office automatic reply that says he won't be contactable until his return on X date.
Load More Replies... I’m on sabbatical right now. My auto-reply tells everyone their email is auto-deleted and to re-send it the date my sabbatical ends 😂
Managers: Time off is for relaxing/reloading/idling/whatever and *is* *not* on-call duty or standby for emergency duties. I once had a manager who didn't know the difference and he was the reason I quit. At least where I work on-call duty is paid work time - even if there is nothing to do. Only on on-call duty I would check my work e-mails after hours.
When I've been away and come back to e-mails while I've been OOO and then follow-ups to those e-mails, I always start off with something passive aggressive like "As you would have seen from my OOO, I have had no access to e-mail until "XXXXX" date. Please can you let me know who you directed the query to in my absence and I'll follow up with them" with everyone in the trail CC'd in. Cue the flustering and bumbling about as everyone knows eff all had been done..........not my problem :)
This is an American phenomenon, a European coworker announced that he'd be on vacation in 2 weeks, and someone asked "Will you have cellular coverage so we can call if we need you?" and his reply was "I'll have great cell coverage, but you can't reach me, as I said, I'll be on vacation, don't you know what vacation is?"
*American corporate culture. An American YouTuber came to my country and her brain exploded.
Oh, this happens in Europe too, though not as often. One of the managers I work with is the kind of guy who doesn't respect people's time off and I've met more than a few like him. These types are always in upper management. It's a temporary assignment and I can't wait to be done with him.
Load More Replies... When the pandemic hit, the company I worked for wanted me to link my personal cellphone to the company number, and take work calls from customers on it while working from home. No. F*****g. Way. I was not going to have customers calling me on my cell at all hours—-who would probably still be calling me at my number now, two years after I left! I used my unused landline, got a temporary Google phone number specifically for work (which I stopped after I quit), and used that instead. I refuse to open myself up to never being able to disconnect from work by allowing access to my personal cellphone number. Same goes for emails. I will create an email address specifically for work contact, and not look at it at all on my off hours (people will send emails that will let them know when they’re viewed, telling them you’re doing some work-related stuff, so they take that as permission to hound you, so f**k that).
When I was going on medical leave a manager asked if they could contact me if they had any problems...that's actually illegal. When I talked to my dr office about it, they said to refer anyone with that question to them and they "will explain what the word leave means".
Made the mistake of giving my cell number to a select few when I started at my current job. They were friendly and I wanted to fit on. boy! Was that a mistake! Needless to say I changed my number ( been wanting to for a long time anyways) some workers try to guilt trip me for me having a "healthy" work-life balance. only my bosses have my personal. If it's really an emergency, they are the ones who would cal me. Everyone else can way after the weekend
Ooohhh wait until your SO texts and when you don't respond within seconds blows a nut. I don't have my phone on me 24/7 especially when I am asleep. It's ludicrous for people to think I am hooked on my phone just because they happen to be.
As long as i'm not being paid for being on call 24/7 I refuse to be excepted to answer my phone or email when I'm off work. Especially not on vacation. I absolutely hate workplaces that feel they are entitled to your whole life. Most people work to live - not the other way around.
My husband got called the day before our wedding and was reamed out by his boss about some sort of training that needed to be completed before we got back from our honeymoon 3 weeks later. Training that the company had just been notified about a couple days prior after his vacation started. Got him so upset that he couldn't sleep that night. We got back and then found out the training wasn't required for managers. If I was a person with less self control...
If you are off, then you are not contactable unless you are C-Suite but then they get big money. My manager and I have an agreement, if one of us is off the other can only reach out if there is a major work incident. Other than that no contact. No-one else at work has my number.
I start a new job on Monday. One of the things that came up during the interview, was that it's a 7.5 hour day and that's it. No overtime and no weekends. :D The fact that it came up, and not from me, shows me that they are also strict on this. I love it. :D
My work did bother me when I was long term sick since they wanted to make sure I got to apply for which vacation period I wanted and which schedule group I wanted. Well bother is a strong word, but they went out of their way to make sure I knew I needed to pick in case I forgot. I do love living in one of the so called socialist hells.
If I know someone is out, I will make sure to put in something don't I don't expect a response until they get back, I just wanted to ask before I forgot our something. If the person does respond, I usually end up being like "Why are you here right now? You are supposed to be on vacation. Get out of here. You can take care of this when you get back. Go enjoy your vacation."
I remember when computers were first coming into use in the work place and they said that emails would create less paper and less work. Yeah I didn’t think so then.
Why on earth would anyone expect a reply when you get an automatic reply saying they are out of the office. There’s almost always a person to cover while the person is out of the office. I can’t understand how a company can expect this of their employees. My husband works in this type of arena and is always setting limits on others. He is always coaching the newer people to set limits too and hopefully some will.
That's why I stick to working for government entities...on the RARE occasions that they reached out to me when out of the office, it was for something really important and they automatically converted it to paid time which saved me some vacation time.
Years back, when few had cellphones or laptops, my supervisor told me to call work daily (1-800 number) during my vacation, in case I needed to solve a problem. Never mind that I was on the other side of the country and I was the least experienced on my team. After three days of calls, my supervisor told me to stop calling.
I was on vacation when the recruitment company I formally worked for asked me to help out as one of the their biggest clients had gone under. They asked me to create lots of social media campaigns and marketing material for help to find jobs for all these employees that were losing their jobs all while I was on holiday. I get back to work the following week expecting a big thank you but instead I get laid off as they had to make job cuts themselves due to losing a big contract. Never did get any thanks either for helping out while I was supposed to be on vacation
On my away notice I say clearly I will not be available, please contact this person instead, and if you have not heard back from me by whatever date, please contact me. I have a few people in other departments that only want to work with me so they are willing to wait the two weeks to hear back from me specifically and that is fine, they wait.
Not all employers are evil :) I am the employer who gives employees heck when they respond to messages/emails while on vacation and/or message a colleague while on a vacation day. They may be copied on something so they can be in the loop when they get back but I do not want them to be checking and I do not want a response while they are away. When I tell them to stop I get a "Yes, I know but I just..." .
I am not sure this is a problem related to US company culture. I work in Europe and have experienced in many companies how, even if “respecting work life balance” was touted as a key face value, in reality “hard working” is the way to climb the ladder. The difference I see between US and Europe is: in EU if you do respect your work life balance, you do not climb the ladder. In US, you get fired.
My supervisor recently interrupted my PTO to tell me of our office being vandalized. A full grown man can't handle a broken window without my input???? I was on my way to an appointment and just told him I had somewhere to be.
I worked for a very small company (5 employees) with single owner. We never called him when he was on vacation, and he never called us. Except the time one of my colleagues thought he texted his gf "a client has given me a bottle of champagne, fill the bath with bubbles, light the candles, get an ice bucket and glasses ready." Reply from the boss "I assume this is not meant for me!"
You can't control what others do, only your response. Set an automatic reply when you're away saying and will respond by X date after you return. For work always leave an alternative contact if there is one (your manager, a coworker) Then forget about it! People do get a reply, you've done your part. Whatever they do with that is their issue, Don't make it your problem by getting upset. Don't even look at your emails if that's better for you. You can let people send as many emails as they like without taking that on as an emotional issue. You're right, they are wrong to do it but don't give them the power to trigger you. Work must go on while you're away and the company should have provisions for that to happen.
I retired a couple of months ago. For PTO, management was adamant that we put an OOO message up, shut the phone off, put it in a drawer and relax. Best company I ever worked for.
Wow! When I leave work at the end of every shift, I treat my time like I don't have a job or any kind of work responsibility, until I'm at work again on my next shift! If managers cannot respect my boundaries, I find a new job because I'm not at work to be a slave 24/7 and a healthy life-work balance is important.
Looks like the corporate culture at this poor fellow's company doesn't know how to set vacation return emails in the settings for the email platform they use. Gmail-just go to settings and set up the dates for your vacation so the senders get a return email that you are on vacation and to whom to direct their needs to in the company. Poor man's company obviously is not aware of professional email behavior. Shame on them.
Tell me you are middle management without telling me you are middle management.
Load More Replies... Did you read the text? He specifically details how he has an Out Of Office automatic reply that says he won't be contactable until his return on X date.
Load More Replies...
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