Edmund, A Butler’s Tale. A giant rollercoaster of a novel in four hundred sizzling chapters.
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I have literally never seen an OOO that wasn’t “I will be out of the office until DATE/further notice. Please contact X or Y at EMAIL/PHONE if you need assistance.” This is fascinating stuff.
I’m extremely busy watching Home Alone, Die Hard, and the 1994 Ninja Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Christmas Special on repeat until the new year.
I misread that at first and thought you’d said that a random picture of a employee popped up, and was momentarily horrified at the thought of my face appearing on my co-workers screens!
Thanks so much for your note! I’ve packed away my makeshift office for the week in order to go nowhere and do nothing. I may be dipping my toes in the tub instead of the ocean and making my favorite Smitten Kitchen recipes for myself rather than indulging at a fancy restaurant, but I’m still trying to disconnect and recharge.
For comparison my current (not great) boss sent an out of office recently detailing how he would be out because he was on his personal sail boat all day, sailing from vacation destination X back to our port city. At length. In a pandemic. When we all had our wages frozen at the start of the crisis.
While you’re writing and activating your out of office message, avoid including the following:
If instead you ask your co-workers to cc or bcc on replies then you will know which have been dealt with. (I think for internal mails it’s more reasonable to ask that if the original person contacts someone else, they cc you so you know who is dealing – and in smaller organisations where people know you personally you could also send a mail round the day before you leave to say you’re going to be out and to ask that any enquiries are directed to [name]in your absence, to try to avoid them coming into your inbox in the first place.
. Open the page and click on the “Send automatic replies radio button.” Until you turn off the assistant option, automatic replies will be continued to send. Keep as a reminder to off the assistant. Now, tap the “Send” option, and the date and time options become available.
I think you talk to person X and ask them to cc you when they are dealing with things sent to them because of your OOO.
Some people can try to contact you again and again if they think you might be available at some time. If your colleagues know that they are on a personal vacation, they are less likely to attempt to contact you. The details of the person who can assist the caller when you are not available.
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Half of the auto-replies I get are for very specific chunks of time. Like, if you are out of the office for three hours I don’t need to know, dude.
There were a lot of bilingual staff at my last job, and they always did their out of office messages in both languages. But who knows, maybe the Welsh translator was in a rush and forgot. An agency that handles government translations like road signs might be expected have such rules. On the other hand, never underestimate the boneheadedness of the monolinguals. Especially English ones.
Automated reply messages are a great way for businesses to fulfill customer support expectations of receiving a prompt response for their chat or email requests. Automated reply messages empower businesses to:
OMG if I got this OOO message I would pee my pants laughing! I think its brilliant! (But perhaps thats my weirdness popping out again… shoo shoo get back)