Have you been away from work for more than a week and returned finding yourself at your desk for a couple of hours (or days) processing a tonne of obsolete email?

I recently went on 4 weeks leave and left this as my 'vacation' auto response email.

I will be out of the office starting 04/01/2010 and will not return until 01/02/2010.

When I return I will NOT be reading the hundreds of emails that have accumulated in my absence. I WILL be assuming that if your issue is urgent you will have discussed it with one of the people below ;

Joe Bloggs
Fred Bloggs

If you haven't spoken to them, and still want my input on something, you will need to resend your email on or after 01/02/2010. When I return I will be deleting ALL emails without reading them.

Processing email when I got back involved selecting all email in my inbox and pressing delete. 4 weeks of email processed in less than 20 seconds.