That said, be careful with messages that are this curt. Make sure you're familiar enough with your audience — and your boss, for that matter — to know that this sort of out-of-office message will be met with a snicker, and not with annoyance.
I have gotten weird pushback on this that people are offended that I would say I am out for religious observance, as if it somehow implies that my reason for being out of the office is more important (or inviolable) than theirs. I don’t even know what to do with that.
.
TEMPLATE #1. (Office closed for holiday notice: Memo to all employees) Dear All, Please note that our office will be closed on (day), (date) because of the (mention reason). The office will then open as usual on the next working day. This is for your kind information. Do spread this info among other colleagues.
You can then come up with a subject and write your text, explaining that you are out of office or unavailable.
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:
@cwarzel I’ve started putting mine up on weekends, and on weekdays after 7pm for internal senders. I’m offline for the night & won’t be checking email, dorks.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Muse and is reprinted with permission.
Don't be afraid to use a pop cultural reference that the audience would recognize. Instead of bemoaning your absence, they'll have something fun and familiar to laugh at.
The Fast Company Innovation Festival is happening now! Join us LIVE for FREE now.
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.
More From The Muse: Standard Out Of Office Messages Are Boring, Try This Instead 6 Out-Of-Office Templates For The Holidays That You Can Copy And Paste Now The Email You Need To Send Your Boss If She Doesn’t Respect Your Time Off
Oh my gosh, this is funny! It does sound kinda like, “some things are more important than work, JAN.”
Or, if you’d just like to find out more about our amazing services then all you have to do is head over to our website.
My biggest pet peeve is the opposite – people who NEVER turn on their OOO! I’m not saying for a day but when they’re out for an extended period of time and I’m reaching out to get a deliverable.
Think about whether you want to leave a forwarding email, which is helpful for dealing with any loose ends you forgot about, in the excitement of leaving.
I work with such a person. So instead of something like “I’m writing to ask if you would graciously consider serving on our committee”, she will send a message along the lines of: “I am graciously writing to ask you to serve on our committee.”
My employer uses Outlook and it has an option to display all OOO messages when you add the person into the To/CC/BCC fields of an email, prior to sending it. It’s pretty great and actually saves an email sometimes because I can see who I should contact and just go to them.