I had a coworker whose former employer required them to update their voicemail message every day. “Hello, you’ve reached MaryMary. Today is Thursday, June 3rd. I am in the office all day but may be away from my desk for meetings. Please leave a message and I will return your call as soon as possible.” She got in the habit and still updated her VM everyday. Occasionally I run into someone elsewhere in our industry with a daily VM message and know they used to work at the same place.
I’m currently out of the office between [DATES], as I’m attending the yearly WordCamp. Perhaps you will also be there, and we can meet in person.
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But I also believe there’s meaningful power in the mundane cultural norms we set and practice. Email, for better or worse, makes up a large chunk of how knowledge workers communicate. So much of this communication is muddled by broken email habits and larger anxieties around performing productivity. We’re constantly nervous about asking too much of others or doing too little on behalf of our coworkers. But we’re also stuck in work patterns that force us to communicate constantly and normalize working and demanding things from colleagues at all hours.
I was once horrified as an HR person, and amused as a normal person, by an OOO from an employee who had left the company. They had booked vacation for their last week or so, and while I can’t remember the exact text, it said that they were no longer with the company and they were happy to leave and never come back. I think “to this hellhole” was only implied.
That’s also annoying because if it’s not someone I interact with regularly I will wonder if it’s been left on by accident.
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You can set the ‘favourites’ phone calls to pass through the DND but does this also apply to their text messages or only their phone calls?
One of my co-workers, who was involved in a lot of committees and consequently got even more than the usual share of email around my place, put up an OOO message that said she was going to be “on pot for the week of the 15th.”
Your ooo also serves to let people know when they can expect you to reply yourself. If that’s not a concern, then I guess you don’t need one.
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But I will be taking periodic breaks from eating, binge-watching, and probably from cooking, too, to check my email [once per day/every evening/occasionally] while I’m away.
I hate unnecessary out of office messages. You don’t need to tell me you will be out for two hours. If it was that important, I would not be using e-mail!
Yes! I would roll my eyes *a*lot* at that message – it comes across as someone taking themselves way too seriously.
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.
5.( عملائنا الكرام، سيتم إغلاق مكتبنا في الفترة ما بين 24 ديسمبر إلى 2 يناير. يمكنك الوصول إلينا كالمعتاد يوم الاثنين 5 يناير. نتمنى لكم ولعائلتكم عيد ميلاد سعيد وسنة جديد سعيدة وناجحة.
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The hours in your signature is a great idea! I’m about to have a non-standard work schedule to accommodate medical appointments. Totally stealing this idea!