I used to have this on my personal voice mail, back when voice mail was used often since internet was over phone lines. I stopped using it because it confused too many callers. Invariably the first message would be “Hello? Hello? Mark? Fu-” (click). Then there’d be another call with a proper message.
This OoO has to be in the tech sector. I can see something like this as an (internal only) OoO at my workplace. I actually kinda love it. Yes it’s wordy but it also makes the recipient take a beat and consider the importance of their issue and where to go if needed. It will also cut down on interruptions to the “catch-all” person in the standard OoO, which is generally the Admin. I have always hated being the go-to on people’s OoOs. I spent more time trying to find info on what Urgent Emailer insisted was URGENT than I did doing any actual work. And the urgency was never really necessary.
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In my much, MUCH younger days, I printed out a photo of a cruise ship with an arrow and “I am here” pasted on it and taped it to my monitor…
Setting up an effective out-of-office autoresponder may seem to be a simple task. However, there is nothing worse than receiving an automated response that is not clear or useful. You want your “out of office” message to provide useful information and clarify why you are not available now. You certainly want to avoid any confusion or frustration.
I’m four weeks away from going on maternity leave for six months, so I’m in the process of divvying up my clients between colleagues, or finishing off work and closing cases. I will need an OOO for anyone who pops up again having been closed in the past, so this thread has been useful to get me thinking about it!
As for pet peeves, I hate when someone doesn’t turn off their out of office or it has out dated information. As in I’m out of the office until 1/5/1999. UPDATE YOUR MESSAGE or TURN IT OFF! :)
When you left for the day?! I could maybe see that if you were dealing with different time zones (although I worked for a company with offices on both US coasts, in the UK, and in Asia and no one did this), but it still feels really excessive. I would guess the work/life balance situation would be bad at a place that required this.
Should the matter be important, please contact Jim Ross ([email protected]) in my absence. Kind regards.
My pet peeve is OOOs for the afternoon/an appointment when the person who set it up is NOT good at responding to emails in a timely fashion. If someone usually requires multiple reminders and follow up emails for me to get a reply to an email after 2 weeks, I don’t really need a notification that their responses will be delayed an hour until they get back from the doctor. It makes me think “who are you responding to that quickly, and why can’t you reply to me that fast??”
Have you ever received or written an out-of-office message that you really liked? If you’re up to sharing them, we’d love to see your favorites. Don’t forget to share this post with friends and colleagues!
Thanks for your email. Please expect a delay in response due to a medical emergency. In case of urgent queries, please reach out to me on my cell or to my colleague at [email protected].
As with all winter breaks, but especially in a longer break, division and department leaders are responsible for ensuring that external contacts are aware of the closures and as appropriate salaried staff are performing services as necessary to meet the needs of the community during the closure, including checking email/voicemail and responding to time-sensitive matters.
Your email is important to me and I will respond when I return to my desk. If you require immediate assistance, please contact [Alternate Name] at [alternate email].
Given free rein, I’d absolutely love to tell people that needing me to show them how to do X in Excel is actually not a vacation-interrupting emergency and there are tons of free videos that would explain that, if they did not want to contact the actual departments who handle tech support and training. Or that this project they’ve known about for a month but decided to keep under their hat until it became an emergency is something they’ll need to resolve themselves. But that would not fly at all.
As 2020 winds down, lots of people (us included) will be out of the office celebrating the holidays with family and friends. Here are some really funny, clever and snarky out-of-office messages sent this year, courtesy of HubSpot Blogs (full article here).
I will be checking email throughout the day and will try to respond to messages promptly (please flag urgent.
“No matter what your best intentions, you're going to get bogged down the minute you return to the office,” Sullivan says. “Don't set exact timeframes for responding to messages in your OOO. Instead, set general expectations for‘I'll respond as quickly as possible upon my return,’ giving you some leeway.”