The automatic response announced that I was gone and then corrected itself:
This is a test, I am really in the office.
I sent it during another dense run of mail checks. The messages came from Gmail. I watched the Beatport host receive them and answer. Some subjects were misspelled. Some bodies were one word. The only useful part was the route.
I had tested the vacation responder earlier in November. It worked once and came back onto the list. That meant another change, another route, or another address still needed attention.
A mail host can accept the original while a script, rule, or list does the wrong thing afterward. I traced the outside message into the server, through the responder, and back to Gmail. When one version failed, I changed one part and tried again.
I was not very patient in every subject line. One test called itself final. It was not. Another said the system had better work. It still needed more work.
The machine said I was away. The note inside the response told the truth.
I was in the office. Still testing.
The other messages in the run were just as plain. Misspelled subjects. One-word bodies. Another claim that this would be the final test.
It was not the final test.
The automatic reply came back to Gmail carrying the sentence I had written. That was the result I needed from this round, even if the sentence itself made the whole thing sound ridiculous.
It worked.
Then I saved the result.