You should use your out of office email whenever you’re going to be away from the office – whether it’s for a day, a week, or even longer.
I wrote the above comment off the top of my head. I wish I had time to rewrite and edit it. I would have changed “their goldfish” to “a spider they accidentally stepped on”, and would have added more detail to the story of the sister’s death (e.g. “her Pomeranian yapping” rather than the less descriptive “her dog barking”). Unfortunately, I could not do the thorough writing job required for that comment because someone close to me recently … – The person whose out of office advertised his gig on the weekend, for anyone in travelling to [city] – The people in a certain department who have taken to saying things like “if you really need to contact me, call 000-YYY-XXXX where Y is the square root of [insert numbers] and X is the year plutonium was discovered.” – The ones where people have an auto response saying they only check their emails once a day between 1-2pm – “I’m on research leave and I may be slow to reply.” (Whereby it is guaranteed they will reply immediately, because academics do not *really* take breaks).
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I have always said that I’m taking annual leave so that still applies for me – but that’s pretty standard for my company.
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.”
Working from home? Try these OOO messages to let people know you’re taking a break. 16. “I’ll get back to you once I’m back from my long-awaited trip to the fridge.”
Save small-bizsense.com https://small-bizsense.com/professional-out-of-office-autoresponder-email-messages/
I’ll get back to you when I return to civilization. Or to an area with WiFi. Or to the office on May 10th. Whichever comes first.
Hello, It’s that time of the year. The time where I save up all my vacation (4 weeks) and spend it on one epic adventure. Where am I? [COUNTRY], the land of magic realism. And I’ll be completely disconnected. In fact, I’ve asked [NAME] from IT to change my password so I can’t check my email at all. #vacationorbust. If you have any questions about [PROMOTION] or anything else, get in touch with [NAME] at [EMAIL] If you want to talk about the hottest job opening at [COMPANY], [POSITION/TITLE] get in contact with our People and Culture team at [EMAIL].
I don’t. They just have to wait. The people in my office that could have a legitimate emergency that requires my input have my cell number, and they’d just call me.
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Oh my gaaaaawwwwdddd my mother used to do this. Like, her work voicemail was “Hello, you have reached Lizy’s Mother, Job Title at Company Name. Today is Thursday, June 3. I am in the office today, but away from my desk at the moment. If you’ll leave a message with your name, phone number, and reason for your call, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
Plus, he incorporated a delightful technique to let people know that if they really wanted him to read their emails, they should probably send them again after his return. Not only does that keep the sender accountable by saying, “If this is really important, you know when to reach me,” but it also helps him truly vacate his work while he’s away. And that’s hard to do. First, travel to my homeland of Florida. Climb to the highest peak of the tallest mountain. Find a rare flower (no specifics, of course… It’d be cheating). Put the flower back, because as the old hiking rule goes, “Leave everything as you found it.”
I once emailed someone I barely knew to check on some materials he was supposed to send my boss and I received an auto-reply letting the world know that he was away in Vegas with his “boyz” to celebrate his divorce. I still don’t know why he felt this was important to share with business contacts. “I’m away for the week” was all the information I needed.
Try something like, "For immediate assistance, please contact Boss Name at [email protected]."
I also tend to check my email 2-3x per day while I’m out for my own sanity and will respond to important* ones if not doing so would hold something big* up. Not using OOO avoids some of the self-righteous nonsense from people with nothing better to do than try to micromanage my personal time.
When you have to be away from work even for a day, you have to add an out of office message so the person who is looking for you will know that you will delay with your answer or to know who else can contact you.
My personal voicemail says that I prefer emails or texts when possible, and please leave a voicemail only as a last resort but either of the other two options will have a much faster response rate. I think I’ve gotten two voicemails in the last year.