When you’ve finally powered your way through that seemingly endless to-do list and are ready to check out of work-mode once and for all, there’s one final thing you need to take care of: Setting your out-of-office response.
Hey there! I’m on holiday right now. I’ll try to reply to your message ASAP. Talk to you later!
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I don’t have access to email because I don’t have a work cell & I don’t open my work laptop on my days off.
My husband does this with his phone (not a number he uses for work). My parents do this as well and I can’t figure out if it’s due to lack of tech skills or not wanting to deal with voicemails (I think it’s a combination). I had surgery a couple years ago and had to give the hospital all three numbers and then my brother an hour away as backup since he’s the only one besides me with functional voicemail.
Which is why the workers who do have the ability, whether through place within the hierarchy or company culture, should not squander it. In fact, they should recognize the OOO as an opportunity to model and normalize organizational or even industry-wide guardrails (as opposed to bullshit feebly-maintained ‘boundaries’). It’s why, starting this summer, we need to embrace the blunt, descriptive OOO message.
In our company it is very much the norm (though some don’t and it’s not looked down on. It’s just we kinda know every handles the ridiculous amounts of email we get in different ways that suit them). And it’s the norm of the people who so to put that in there because 1. if you go anywhere north of where we’re at, you’ll get zero reception and 2. other people we work with know you normally do.
I do this, too, especially if I’m out for longer than a day or two. I like giving myself a bit of breathing room to dig out of the inbox.
Boss would put up an OOO when attending an event off-site, but would still be answering their emails, which meant that I would get “Boss said you were the correct contact, can you help?” Inevitably, I would respond and, two hours later, Boss would too, cc-ing me on the original email in which they shared the exact same info I had earlier that day. It was MADDENING.
What a year...you deserve a break. Use this email generator to create your custom 2020 vacation responder.
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I actually hate that feature – I LOVE manually updating it myself but I know most of my coworkers benefit from having it that way.
I guess my first instinct might be thinking it’s rude but having seen it a few times I do get it. It really makes sense for people who get dozens or hundreds of emails a day and are gone for extended periods of time. It’s more courteous to be up front about it than silently delete like some people said they do (though I get they maybe just didn’t realize they’d need to do that).
COMPLETELY agree. Every time I see an OOO for a two-hour doctor’s appointment I have to fight the urge to reply with “How much are you paid?” because I know there is no scenario in which I would have to explain myself if I don’t answer an email for a few hours and if you are that important you better make a LOT more than I do.
We had to do this at my prior position so that agents knew that we were in the office that specific day. Now i dont even use my phone as most internal people call me on Teams.
Yes, me too. It’s a lifesaver. Although to be fair, Outlook announces the fact that you’ve got an OOO message going out with a big yellow banner, so it’s quite hard to miss.
10) I am on vacation from mm/dd to mm/dd. I will allow each sender one email. If you send me multiple emails, I will randomly delete your emails until it is pared down to one. Choose wisely. Please note that you already sent me one email.