My boss requires us to put a nightly OOO message up, and I HATE it. I pushed back on it for months at first, because people know and understand that the reason no one is responding at 8pm is because the business is closed (or at least, they should understand that…). It wasn’t worth the fight, my boss thinks it’s so important, so I caved and just turn on the message every night. I think it makes us look immature and like we don’t understand business norms, but it’s not the hill I’m willing to die on.
I use a basic OOO message – “Hi! I’m out of the office x date(s). I will return your email when I’m back at my computer on x date. If you have an urgent matter, please contact x or y. Have a nice weekend/holiday/etc!/Thanks!” My office WANTS us to use more personal and witty OOO messages like this article’s message. And that stresses me out. I don’t want to spend time worried about whether my OOO is witty. I don’t want to annoy other people just looking for basic info like when am I back and who they can contact in the meantime. I correspond a lot with third parties on serious matters (legal), and I don’t think a message like that is appropriate. So, I just keep using my basic message and hope my supervisor’s supervisor doesn’t email me and see that I’m not “trying.” Ugh.
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In case of maternity leave, make sure that you set up a long-term out of office message.
I can see how they would annoy given her character at work though. There is something especially cruel about advocating for your boundaries while disrespecting other peoples.
I can’t remember if this was just an outgoing voice message before routing you to an individual, or for a voicemail, but I remember a fun December phone message from a small company (I think an insurance agency) sung to the tune of a Christmas carol–something like Jingle Bells. The content was something like: you’ve reached our office during this holiday season, hope your holidays are happy, please 1) leave a message or 2) press X for who you want. Other than the tune, it wasn’t overly holiday-centric (for those who don’t celebrate the holidays) and it was cute.
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Holiday messages are short quotes, where people wish happiness or luck upon others. Employees generally issue these messages before certain festivities as a courtesy or to let recipients know that you care about them. Depending on who the recipient is, your holiday message may be more formal or casual in tone.
By knowing more about your activities, customers are more likely to trust your company. In turn, your company’s outreach increases.
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Does your company publish blogs or offer downloadable ebooks, reports, or case studies? If so, add a P.S. to the end of your vacation message linking your readers to some content they can learn from or engage with.
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I have always been flabbergasted by people who include vacation details (especially if they’ll be out of the country) in their OOO messages. I’m not a burglar, nor do I know any. (I hope!) But the people with the message don’t know that!
I agree, especially coming from a SVP. It’s not just a funny OOO message then. It’s a subtle reminder that if someone that high feels they can step back away for a few days without things falling apart without them, chances are the same could be said about you. Leading by example indeed and in a way that gets their point across to probably lots of people that may not have noticed otherwise.
we had something similar at one phone-heavy place I used to work and it was actually extremely useful – everyone set their voicemail when they got in, and people would include if they were offsite (so worth ringing their mobile) or likely to be otherwise unreachable, and who to contact if your query was urgent. only took a minute to set, and was super useful to me as someone who had to talk to maybe 10-20 people on the phone in a day.
If that’s truly what you intend, great. But if not, you may want to take a deep breath and try this: “I am currently on vacation and not accepting emails. Please contact x for any issues while I’m away.” This approach is refreshingly honest and clear. And as long as you’re comfortable with the competence and availability of your back-up contact, you shouldn’t feel funny or guilty about going this route at all.
Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, I am currently out of the office and will not return until 3rd November.
I will be out of the office for a week and will be back on [DATE]. I am planning on hitting the gym hard during those free days. However, don’t expect any change when I’m back (plans often get forgotten).