I NEVER use the MS Outlook "Out of Office Assistant" for a variety of reasons. The main reason is that I rarely take time off when I don't check my email AT ALL. Generally, I will check it periodically just to keep from being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of it.
On Saturday night, I decided to go ahead and use it for this little vacation and started setting it up. When I went in, there was an old message from August 2010 (the last time I used it). I had just finished booking my lodging for my August vacation, just finished scheduling at work through August, etc. When I saw the dates, I thought - how interesting, I'm taking vacation almost at the same time I did a couple of years ago. Not once did I realize that this is JULY...so I set my message to say that I was returning on August 12...instead of July 12.
When I was catching up on my email yesterday, I got a note from someone that was my first indication that I had made a mistake. I had my usual freak out that I had made some big mistake. My first response is to overreact and send an apology to everyone I have ever met. Then I paused and I thought - well, I rarely read the Out of Office responses unless I urgently need to contact someone - the person who noted it knows me well...I will not send an apology to the whole company. It will be fine. I'm sure only a couple of people noticed...
Well, come to find out that HR called MY BOSS!! "Is Jean okay? We see that she is out until August 12..." ARRRGHH!! One of my friends who works in another state called the scheduler at my office to make sure I was okay... When I was at work today, everyone was ribbing me about it. I took a deep sigh and decided to laugh. I'm only human, right? No one died. I'm back at work and all is well, but I won't be using the Out of Office Assistant again without a date-checker!
