When Professor Randy Pausch took a month off work for his honeymoon, his boss at Carnegie Mellon University insisted that he be reachable. So he recorded a message for when people tried to call. On it he explained that he’d waited until 39 to get married. Then he gave the names of his new in-laws and the town they lived in, so a caller could get their number from directory assistance. Then, lastly: “If you can convince my in-laws that your emergency merits interrupting their only daughter’s honeymoon, they have our number.”

当兰迪波许(Randy Pausch)教授为了度蜜月而休假一个月时，他在卡内基梅隆大学(Carnegie Mellon University)的老板坚持要能联系上他。因此，他为打电话找他的人录了一段语音留言。在留言中，他解释说，自己一直等到39岁才结婚。然后，他说出了自己岳父母的名字及他们居住的小镇，这样来电者可以从查号服务台查到他们的电话号码。最后他说：“如果你能说服我岳父母，你的紧急情况值得打断他们的独女的蜜月，他们有我们的电话。”

I was thinking about this clever out-of-office notification as I tried to construct my own in email form. Prof Pausch’s honeymoon message is a story from a more technologically innocent age — it was about 15 years ago, which is at least 100 in internet years. Back then, aside from the hurdles put in place by determined honeymooners, there were also plausible reasons to be out of touch. Now, technology is so good that it’s ruined our favourite excuses for not being reachable. Writing that one has “limited” or “intermittent” access to email is usually no more than a declaration that one intends to be choosy about dealing with it.

当我试图构思我自己的“不在办公室”自动回复电子邮件时，我脑子里在想的就是这个聪明的“不在办公室”通知。波许教授的蜜月留言是科技还不那么发达时代的故事——发生在大约15年前，如果用互联网年计算，至少相当于100年前。那时候，除了决心度蜜月的新婚夫妇设置的障碍，也有其他貌似合理的理由失去联系。如今，科技如此发达，以至于已经毁掉了我们在希望不被打扰时最喜欢使用的借口。写下自己只能“有限地”或“间歇地”访问电子邮箱，通常无异于宣布你打算有选择性地处理电子邮件。

But this is only half the story. The other is that technology, particularly when it comes to the out-of-office message, hasn’t kept up. There’s a robot that walks like a dog and cars drive themselves, so why don’t we have smarter ways to manage time spent away from work?

但这只是故事的一面。故事的另一面是科技（尤其是当涉及到“不在办公室”的留言时）没能跟上时代。我们拥有可以像狗一样行走的机器人，有可以自动驾驶的汽车，但为什么我们没有更智能的方法来管理休假的时间呢？

An obvious improvement would be to add functionality to email clients that spreadsheet software has had for years: warnings that self-referential loops, aka “circular references”, have been created. This affliction hits parts of Europe especially hard in August. Person A is out of the office, please contact Person B if it’s urgent. Person B says the same, refers emailer to Person C in an emergency. Person C refers to Person A. It is either a clever ruse or poor planning, but given that everyone is already emotionally and mentally, if not physically, out of the door when they set this up, it’s probably the latter.

一个明显的改善可能是在电子邮件客户端添加电子表格软件多年前就具备的功能：已经产生自动指向循环（也叫“环状指向”）的警告。这一“克星”在8月的欧洲部分地区尤其折磨人。甲称自己不在办公室，如果情况紧急的话，请联系乙。乙重复甲的话，让发信人在紧急情况下去找丙。丙又将紧急联系人设为甲。这种情形如果不是一种聪明的策略，就是计划不周，但是考虑到在这种循环被设立时，每个人早已在心理上和头脑上（如果不是实际上）离开了办公室，很可能是后一种。

From this it logically follows that any new out-of-office technology would have to respect the fact that having high quality time off is a team effort. So one of the top features for development should be a warning that pops up when you’re about to email someone from whom you’ve already received an out-of-office. The system will be smart enough to consider the dates that the holiday-maker said they were away in their email. This isn’t my idea. It’s covered by a US patent filed (grant pending) in 2006 that’s owned by IBM.

由此可合理推断出，任何新的“不在办公室”技术都必须尊重这样的事实：享受高质量的休假时间要靠团队努力。因此，开发的首要功能之一应该是，当你要给一个你已经收到“不在办公室”回复的人发邮件时，系统会自动弹出警告。这一系统将足够智能，能够记住度假者在邮件中说过的休假日期。这不是我的主意。一项2006年申请的美国专利（等待许可）就包含此项功能，这项专利归IBM所有。

I’d like it to go one further by having it hook up with an email scheduling service, giving you the option to forward the conversation to the well-slept sod on the day of their return in order to make absolutely clear that yes, they were right to wish that they could have just stayed in the Lake District forever.

我想更进一步，让这一功能与电子邮件日程安排服务相连接，让你可以选择可以将邮件推迟至那个正在享受充足睡眠的讨厌鬼回来上班的那天发送，以清楚地表明，是的，他们本想永远待在湖区(Lake District)不回来的想法是正确的。

Provided colleagues heeded the warnings, such functionality would be a boon to those of us who have poor self-control when it comes to unplugging from the Matrix. It would also, however, provide the added bonus of making it abundantly clear who the most and least helpful people are when we are attempting down time.

如果你的同事听从了这些警告，这样的功能对于那些难以从旅行中收心、自制力较差的人将是一个福音。然而，它还将提供额外的好处：让你充分认清在你想要休息时，谁是最帮忙的，谁是最添乱的。

Perhaps in the year after the release of a new add-in to Gmail or Outlook that provides this tool, the survey for the 100 Best Companies to Work For could include a Jerk Index measuring the number of out-of-office notices heeded versus overridden.

也许在提供这种工具的Gmail或Outlook新插件发布之后，对100家最佳雇主(Best Companies to Work For)的调查可能包括一项“傻瓜指数”(Jerk Index)——测算 “不在办公室通知”被听从的与被无视的数量之比。

The next new feature would generate a public plausibility score for a given out-of-office message. If the message says “intermittent access” but the person is replying to messages at a rate that implies that they want an excuse not to spend time with their family, their plausibility score would be near zero.

下一个新功能将对某人的“不在办公室”留言打出一个公开的可信度评分。如果留言说可“间歇访问”邮箱，但此人回复信息的速度暗示他们想找个不跟家人待在一块儿的理由，他们的可信度评分将接近于零。

If the message says “no access” and the person replies to anything, this system will send them an image of US talk-show host Maury Povich along with the text: “Your out-of-office said that you wouldn’t be replying to emails. The fact that you replied determined that was a lie.”

如果留言说“无法访问”邮箱，而此人又回复所有邮件，该系统将给他们发送一张美国脱口秀主持人莫里波维奇(Maury Povich)的照片，并附上文字：“你的‘不在办公室’留言说你不会回复邮件。而你回复了，说明那是一个谎言。”

As for my own message, I decided on something non-committal. Until technology catches up, I might as well keep my options open. Oh, and I left Person B out of it. He’s not in anyway.

至于我自己的“不在办公室”留言，我决定含糊其辞。在科技手段还不足的时候，我还是保留自己的选择权吧。噢，我也没有设置乙为紧急联系人。反正他也休假了。