Oh my gosh, yes! This also drives me crazy. The game of emailing 15 people because they are all out and pointing to each other as their back up. Infuriating.
I once had a coworker who attempted to put up an OOO for all of busy season that basically said “I’m busy with urgent deadlines, so please expect a delay in my response.” I think she was asked to take it down.
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Yeah, I do think some are pretty funny (eg tan lines) and some are not so terrible, but I honestly think she took them incredibly seriously and wasn’t trying to make her colleagues laugh as much as just ….. put out an air of “look how personable and authentic I am”. She also lamented that other people’s OOOs were “rigid” and why couldn’t people have fun?! Which again, sounds not so bad but was someone who would regularly ask prying inappropriate personal questions, so it came across less like “let’s loosen up” and more like “why won’t people tell me the specifics of why they’re off today, because I deserve to know”.
If the person keeps you on the message thread in which they then contact someone else (ideally, the person you stated in your out of office message as the one who’s handling urgent issues in your absence), you are literally kept in the loop and can see for yourself that all was handled when you get back. Of course, this works even better if you check the most recent items in your inbox first when you get back.
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.
I also do not have an OOO for external people – only internal. I always monitor my email enough to be able to forward important external emails to the right person to handle. IDK why, I just don’t like them having the burden of emailing someone else if I’m out. I’d rather my employee contact them and say “Hey, DataQueen let me know you were having an issue and asked me to connect with you.” My last CEO was out for a full year and almost none of our clients knew (we weren’t trying to hide it, it was just not pertinent to them).
I don’t do them for meetings. I do have one that I turn on every Tuesday afternoon since I don’t work Wednesdays. In our culture it’s not uncommon for people to check EMail when they’re off. I don’t do that so I need to let people know. I also put a status message up on Teams. I work with a team of 40 people and I can’t expect them all to remember when I’m there and when I’m not!
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When I started at my old job, they gave me a phone number in the directory but forgot to actually issue me a phone for several years! It was great.
The problem was that this had to be done on deadline and people wanted me to do other things for them that weren’t time sensitive. So I put up an internal-only out of office that basically said “hey sorry I’m working on project X and we have a tight deadline. If this isn’t urgent I’ll get back to you next week. If it is urgent, let me know!”
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Even if it’s for a short amount of time, an autoresponder helps you enjoy your time off from work.
“I am out of the office until X date. Your email has been deleted unread. If it is still important, please resend it after my return.”
Please note that I will be completely disconnected from email and will not be checking messages until I return. So, if you need urgent assistance, please send an email to [Contact Name] at [contact email].
Is your auto attendant clear and easy to understand? Here are 10 sample greeting scripts to make a good first impression on the phone.
The email I send out always says something along the lines of “I’ll be away Thursday and Friday, so if you need anything from me, please let me know before noon on Wednesday. Thanks!”