The auto-reply was invented for mainframe email and became a ritual of professional absence.
The out-of-office auto-reply emerged in the early 1980s alongside the first corporate email systems. IBM's PROFS (Professional Office System) and Digital Equipment Corporation's ALL-IN-1 included vacation message features that could automatically respond to incoming messages while an employee was away.1
Before email, absence from work required no announcement. If someone was not at their desk, they were not at their desk. The office phone rang and went unanswered. Colleagues adjusted.
Email introduced the expectation of response. Once messages could reach an employee at any time, silence became ambiguous. The auto-reply resolved this by broadcasting a worker's absence and expected return date, inventing a new genre of workplace communication in the process.
The convention spread rapidly through the 1990s as email became standard in corporate life. Microsoft Exchange, released in 1996, included a built-in out-of-office assistant.2 The feature assumed that not responding promptly required an explanation. The explanation assumed that responsiveness was the professional default.
In some European countries, out-of-office messages reflect different assumptions about labor and rest. German workers routinely set auto-replies that redirect all inquiries to a colleague, with no promise of follow-up upon return. French law since 2017 has included a "right to disconnect," recognizing the pressure that digital availability places on workers outside business hours.3