It is entirely possible to enjoy a podcast and hate voicemail, nothing about issues with human voices.
I don’t have access to email because I don’t have a work cell & I don’t open my work laptop on my days off.
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Here’s my pet peeve: OOOs that specifically state the person “won’t have access to email.” It contributes to this pervasive idea that an employee who might technically be ABLE to check her work email while OOO better have a damn good reason why she won’t be doing so. Which calls back to the reason someone’s OOO is no one else’s business. Whether you’re OOO because you’re on your honeymoon, having your gall bladder removed, or robbing a bank, OOO should automatically imply unavailability for work stuff. Full stop.
I pretty much never pay attention to out of office replies, just note if there is one. If I really need something urgently I’ll look to see if there’s another person’s contact info, but it’s rarely that urgent. I might also look for a return date, if that matters to me. It would annoy me if I had to wade through a wall of text to find either of those things.
If you have critical projects that can’t wait until you return, offer a communication option like text messages, suggests Reeves. “I have found, to my delight, that people really are judicious about texting you while on vacation,” he says, with one caveat. “Don’t put your mobile number in the away message. That way, only people who have your mobile number can text you. And those are the ones you care most about.”
The boss’s thinking was that people who did drivebys looking for you would then email you, see your OOO, and then be able to call you to talk about whatever they were driving by for. No one liked putting their personal contact info so we never worked from home (pre-COVID and pre-VOIP implementation) or told people to IM us and we’d call them.
I set my OoO for individual public holidays, because I know they’re not global, and I get emails from lots of different countries.
I think my personal VM still says, “Ahoy, ahoy!” In my best Mr. Burns voice. I’m a woman.
Agreed! A bit of warmth is fine, sure, but it’s not the place for chattiness — that’s for talking to an actual person. I want an OOO message to tell me that the person is out, when they’ll be back, and who I should contact in the meantime if need be. No objections to multiple options there, whether it’s “X for llama grooming issues and Y for llama tea parties” or “X for routine questions, Y if it’s urgent, Z if it’s an emergency,” but I want to be able to absorb the useful info quickly and move on.
I had a voicemail greeting like that in High School!! I can’t imagine an adult having that kind of VM greeting; it would definitely annoy me coming from anyone older than like 20.
Out of office (OOO), messages can be an incredible tool to fuel your success. A good away message allows you to tell your customers that you’re away and encourages them to move within the sales funnel with more ease. Using automated messages during holidays or conferences can create social connections with recipients.
My new job provided a template OOO as part of the onboarding brand templates package! I’m sure it might seem like overkill to some, but I’ve had tons of nervous first-job employees ask me what theirs should say, so I loved that they just gave a sample to go from. Also goes a long way in communicating that unique office culture stuff that is usually unspoken/not formalized.
Including even a passing reference stating that your customer’s email is important to you shows your appreciation for the message that you are currently unable to respond to.
We’re not saying you’re boring but you do work in a fairly serious corporate environment. As a result, your out of office needs to be quite to the point but you also like to throw in a little pitch too, you cheeky sod.
“I’m not in the office. I’m spending time with my children and that’s far more important than absolutely anything you could be after”
Education Details: Here's an example (and here are 7 more out-of-office templates, too!) Hi there, I am OOO on PTO from Friday, December 1 - Tuesday, December 10 without access to email or voicemail. If this is urgent, please contact [NAME], otherwise I will respond to messages when I return.
The reason I did it was that the first time I took maternity leave, I came back to thousands of irrelevant emails. It was a chore to sort through them, and finding the ones that were still relevant was like finding a needle in a haystack. And it wasn’t just a waste of *my* time – I often had to reach out to email senders only to hear that no further action was needed, so I was wasting their time too.