My parents ran a furniture refinishing shop when I was in school. There are workshops and conferences for this trade. I attended a private high school that was primarily a boarding school. Once, when my parents needed to attend a middle-of-the-week event, they arranged for me to stay overnight in the school dorms. Upon being asked by the house mother where my parents were, I said they was at a stripping convention.
Your clients should know when they can expect a response and when you might be unavailable due to unforeseen circumstances.
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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!
Note that the poaching email does not have any other contact details other than the leaver's - this is to try and funnel all enquiries to the leaver as part of the poaching plan! More tips here.
How's that for an out-of-office message? Probably not ideal. As a working professional, emails are your lifeline. And even when you're not around to respond, you need to let senders know you're not actually ignoring them.
“There is something especially cruel about advocating for your boundaries while disrespecting other peoples.”
I can see why you’d have a negative reaction to it–that’s how I felt the first several times I heard about these kinds of emails–but I don’t think it’s actually rude (unless they’re saying “if I get emails from Ali G, I’m deleting them”). The wording of the email can be rude, but the general concept of this kind of email isn’t.
When I return from a break, I talk to the people who have acted in my stead and get the rundown of what happened/what needs to still be done. That’s part of my whole “back to work triage”.
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If you want to learn how to set up your OOO message with a self-hosted email, you can follow our quick guide called How to Create Email AutoResponder in cPanel.
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I am currently on annual leave and I return to the office on Monday 21st September. I will reply to your email as soon as possible.
A retired small town newspaper guy once told me about the first time the publisher went on vacation and left him in charge (this would have been in the 80s). The publisher told him “Don’t call me unless the building burns down, and even then, don’t call me until the fire is out.” Good example of management setting vacation expectations.
The plan B is to send it again when they’re back though. I think there are a lot of situations where I emailed them and someone else from the start and someone else answered, or I found someone else in the 2 months span until they’re back, or did it myself, or it’s too late to help…. So it does help them avoid following up on things that don’t need following up on.
Bon voyage! You’re going on your holidays and you’re completely leaving the office behind. This is the perfect auto-response if you won’t be checking your emails the entire trip.
Crafting an out of office message can be plenty of fun and we're about to show you how with our Mad Libs version!
In a role where I got many OoO replies, I actually loved this. (And wrote back in said language. And got a reply!)