Remember that it’s important to choose the tone of your message based on the final recipient.
Going back to how some people can’t ever switch off, this person went above and beyond for their auto-email with a humorous graph that very accurately shows the highs and lows of stress levels before, during and after time away.
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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.
Same, and I leave this template in my settings so all I have to do is change the date. Simple, to the point, and no one can say they didn’t know what to do while I was out.
I should add that I actually WISH I got more exciting OOO messages and/or that I felt like I could be more exciting with mine!
I get why that would bug the hell out of you. But on the flip side, having worked with a lot of European colleagues who do this, it’s not that they’ll have to 8 hours of work on vacation, it’s that they won’t be working at all. So if your bit isn’t done by X date, then their bit won’t get done until they return. That’s just the culture there.
Don’t you worry: while I pretend to be Santa in front of my kids, my colleague, Hannah, will cover for me. Just email her at [email protected] if you need urgent assistance.
An old boss had a pet peeve about this so I became very conscious of making sure that I listed out who to contact on what day… before the group email. So it looked something like this:
You probably received a number of these emails, and thus you should be familiar with the information out-of-office emails provide.
If they think you’ll be checking in, they might still attempt to get in touch with you. In the event that you take vacation time or personal time, they’ll try to contact you less often.
The iPhone DND mode is supposed to use while you drive. When driving, you don’t need to divert your attention while driving, and you can set Do Not Disturb while driving. There are a few options to set Auto Text while driving. You can place on the iPhone to switch automatically to DND mode while driving by detecting motion.
My absolute favorite was the one that literally said “hodilay”. Typo included, capitalization, or any other words, not.
If you’re in a rush or just not sure what to write use some of these out-of-office email examples in your next auto-response email message.
My mother who is still working at 70 has the best out of office emails. As a nervous millennial I tend to be like ‘hi I’m having surgery but will still be checking my emails’ and hers are just ‘I’m taking a break from work. Be back June 2″
But the bottom line is, unplug as much as you possibly can. You’ll get more benefit from your time away and return relaxed, recharged and ready to take on the New Year with extra energy.
My favorite OOO to set is something like this: “I’m at sea from X to Y with very limited bandwidth. I’ll reply to urgent emails as soon as possible (but there may be a delay); if you don’t hear back from me by Z, please resend you message.”