Friday’s Times opinion page contained a column with an interesting title, “The Moral Indecency of the Away Message.” I only use a permanent away message for my AOL account which I elected not to regularly use almost a decade ago. I changed in a point of personal pique. Anyone interest in that back story, we can chat over a drink....or coffee. AOL does not permit auto forwarding of mail so all I could do is post an away message with instructions to resend to a different email address. To this day, it remains the only time I use an “away “message.

The columnist, who generally covers bigger issues of the day, found that away messages only apply in certain circumstances. He “suggests” an away message only really applies where its sender finds the recipient matters less. David Brooks argues that where the sender of the away message recognizes the “emailer” as the more important/ more powerful party in that relationship, the sender will compose and send an actual reply.

Fascinating stuff. I’ve received my share of real replies after getting that automatic away message. Never really gave it a thought.

Have you?