Too little info is frankly worse, IMO. All you need for an OOO is date you are coming back, and who to contact in your absence if it can’t wait for your return. If it doesn’t have that, why bother having one at all?
There’s nothing awful or offensive about this message, but it’s also not very good. Yes, it provides the courtesy of letting the sender nominally know that you’re going to be slower than usual to respond. That’s nice. The problem is in this bit: “may be slow to respond to email.” Another popular variation: “might be slower than usual to respond.”
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Completely agree. I have also recently have seen multiple out of office messages that say something along the lines of, “Please be aware that I may be slow to respond to emails today.” If it’s that time-sensitive, why is it an email? Asynchronous communication tools shouldn’t be smashed into the roles of real-time ones, and vice versa.
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Keeping It Real. I am currently out of the office on vacation. I know I’m supposed to say that I’ll have limited access to email and won’t be able to respond until I return, but that’s not true.
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I’ll reply to your message promptly when I return. Should you require immediate assistance, please send an email to [contact name] at [contact email] in my absence.
A good out-of-office email reply incorporates the following elements: The exact dates of your time off — If you are simply re-activating the message you used Typos — Your out-of-office message could go to anyone, from your manager to your top client. Avoid embarrassment by proofreading it carefully.It is also a good time to start doing daily good deeds. Happy holidays. “May the arrival of Christmas fill your heart with joy when you feel that by sharing with your loved ones an atmosphere of love and peace reigns because each of you carries God in your hearts.”
When I’m out for a day or longer, I like to schedule my out of office message to run all the way up until the start time of my day when I return, since we have people who start emailing three hours or earlier before I even get to my desk. If it’s a Monday and I’ve been out for two weeks and they’re emailing me at 6:30am my time, I want people to know that I’ve been out and will be wading through my inbox and might not answer them right away at 10:01 their time like I typically would.
I worked for a federal contractor back during the Great Recession when government offices were shut down/working with a skeleton crew. I still remember getting OOOs from almost every email address in the agency we worked at explaining they were on furlough & to contact one specific person if the issue was urgent. We all assumed this poor person was hiding under her desk, rocking back & forth, with her head in her hands.
Hope you all are fine and doing well. As we know that the festive season is arriving and we all are looking forward to the holidays. These holidays will allow us all to enjoy the great season and have some amazing time with family and friends. This email is to inform you [all] that the office will be closed for [X] days from [DATE] to [DATE] due to the coming festive season. Our premises will remain closed for normal business from [start date] up to and including [last date]. We will start working on normal days from [DATE] and all the business practices will resume on [re-opening date]. If you have any queries related to the closure period please do not hesitate to contact me. Happy Holidays!
The big issue I have with the example in the post is that not only is it unnecessarily long-winded, but you have to listen through all the chattiness to get to the “here’s who to contact in a real emergency” part. The tone does rub me wrong, but I’m willing to roll with that as a personality/company culture thing.
Giving the option to contact an email address containing “interruptyourvacation” provides two things — 1) A dose of humor, and 2) discouragement from actually doing what the name suggests. Plus, he prefaces it with a request for empathy, by explaining that he promised quality time to his family.
I love this and want to start using it. I am assuming it’s pronounced “hood-a-lay” and that said hodilay has already begun when the OOO message was written!
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Thank you for your email. I will be out of the office from (day/month) to (day/month) and will have limited access to email. If you have any urgent questions, please contact [Name] at [email] or [phone]. I will do my best to reply to your email as soon as I can.
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