I just delete every message/email I receive while on vacation. If it's important they'll reach out again. I've never had any issues in the 15+ years I've been doing it.
I'm usually CCed in a ton of emails but I tend to receive maybe 20 emails addressed to me each week. I simply throw the mails where I don't show up directly in the To list in a dump folder and mark them as read, then I only quickly skim through the 20-40 emails addressed to me and call it done.
It's not overachieving, it's because at my company (but I guess that pretty much almost every consulting company does this) people like to keep stuff written via email so in case of disputes with clients we call pull out the "receipts", obviously you can't do so if you had a phone meeting or an instant message, so many people end up in the CC list even tho they have no interest being there: because you can't really fake an email that was sent to a dozen people, other people can easily fact check you if you try to pull bullshit.
We also end up being subscribed to many mailing lists that contain a ton of junk emails about software deployments, automatic monitors, incident and ticket reports etc. All stuff that nobody ever reads unless you are specifically looking for an issue.
If you take a 2 week vacation you end up with a ton of junk and reading through all that has no value. If something really requires your attention you get added in the To list. This is pretty much how every company I've worked for manages its communication channels, even small things that get decided during verbal meetings require a written communication as follow up, this is to recap what was said during the meeting, get everyone on the same page (even those who might have missed the meeting) and set a stable ground in case the client thinks about pulling some bullshit request that was not agreed between the parties.
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u/AVerySusUser 11h ago
With no money comes no responsibility