I'm out of the office

It's that time of year when huge swathes of the working population head off on annual leave. Before they leave work many people do their best to clean up the loose ends on any projects that they are working on, and this can include events. This means that an event organiser is likely to receive an email. The problem with email is that they are often part of a chain, and not the last communication on a subject. The act of clearing up one loose end invariably creates another, or even several more.

In practice this means that an email arrives, you respond, and then you get an 'out of office' autoresponder by return. When you have been doing this for a while you understand what happened and, if it is not urgent, you simply diarise a call for when your client gets back, probably a day or two after that if possible.You may tut, but you get used to it.

Sometimes the out of office response gives you the name of someone you can email or call if the matter is urgent. This is where the clever corporate executive can make an impact.

As well as your catch up work in the days before you leave you could also start some new projects. The result will be large volumes of communication into the office which will make you seem to be extremely busy, and an indispensable asset to your organisation. Joke.