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4. Out of Office Template #4 For the Person Who Will Be 100% Out of Reach. Hello, Thanks for your email. I’m currently offline, returning on [date]. I’ll respond to your message then.
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If the person keeps you on the message thread in which they then contact someone else (ideally, the person you stated in your out of office message as the one who’s handling urgent issues in your absence), you are literally kept in the loop and can see for yourself that all was handled when you get back. Of course, this works even better if you check the most recent items in your inbox first when you get back.
Remember that it’s important to choose the tone of your message based on the final recipient.
Such a system sends automatic replies to text messages and calls that you miss when not available in the office. A fully-functional app like Calls and SMS Auto Reply gives you a simple, convenient way to respond automatically to people trying to contact you when you are out of the office.
Agree that part time staff was odd to include here. I have no idea if you are part time. I don’t keep track of other people’s schedules. I would find it helpful to know you aren’t available the rest of the day in case I need something sooner.
My favorite one that I’ve heard is from TV. “You’ve reached {name}. I can’t answer. Don’t waste my time.”
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Also, you need to know your audience if you are going to go eccentric. Alison mentions that this message is fine in their culture, but it wouldn’t npbe appropriate for my somewhat formal field. And even if your workplace in general is casual, you might be contacted by someone outside. (In a tiny provincial courthouse I served in the past, there is a story going around that in the 80s a junior but elderly clerk used to address phone callers as hun and sweetheart and generally speak very informally. Most people thought it was funny, and then the President of Supreme Court called and… he didn’t).
Website: https://www.themuse.com/advice/6-outofoffice-templates-for-the-holidays-that-you-can-copy-and-paste-now
Too little info is frankly worse, IMO. All you need for an OOO is date you are coming back, and who to contact in your absence if it can’t wait for your return. If it doesn’t have that, why bother having one at all?
I will find a few moments of holiday bliss once they watch Elf for the seventh time this month. I’ll seize the quiet to check my email once a day. I will only respond to urgent matters but will reply to all emails upon my return.
By now, your neighbourhood supermarket is probably already blasting the classic Christmas tunes, your favourite colleagues are on vacation many miles away, and you’re counting down the days till you get to clear your annual leave 😏
When I’m out for a day or longer, I like to schedule my out of office message to run all the way up until the start time of my day when I return, since we have people who start emailing three hours or earlier before I even get to my desk. If it’s a Monday and I’ve been out for two weeks and they’re emailing me at 6:30am my time, I want people to know that I’ve been out and will be wading through my inbox and might not answer them right away at 10:01 their time like I typically would.
I will be out of the office until *date*. My colleague *Name* will be happy to assist you.
And if you suspect that you won’t look through all those emails that cluttered up your inbox while you were on a vacation at all? Be honest about it and tell your prospects to contact you again at a certain date.
I’m with you on this one. Management has access to a mansion and a townhouse in two different fabulous vacation destinations and it burns my butt every time I see an out of office from one of them (98% white men) going on about how they’ll be enjoying this perk. In the meantime, a few years back we had to eliminate free coffee at the offices because business was not good enough (it was eventually brought back after company president realized after a year that people were really pissed).