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.
I will be out of the office for an extended period starting on (Starting date) until (End date).
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Hi, Happy holidays, and thanks for your email! I’m taking a few days off to spend time with my family and friends so I won’t be answering emails as quickly as usual.
Thank you for your email! I am on vacation. Vacations are not for checking email, so I won’t be doing that. Fortunately, we rarely encounter life and death situations in the world of [INDUSTRY TYPE], and aren’t we all glad for that? If you think I’m checking email because you just received an email from me, that is only because I figured out the pixies that send emails on a schedule. Really, I’m not checking email.
This template comes handy if you don’t prefer checking your inbox during the holiday but want to provide your mobile number for urgent inquiry.
I do this because my industry’s norm is that people check their email on vacation, at least once or twice, but I don’t do it. I don’t have work email on my phone so it’s technically true.
I’ll reply to your message promptly when I return. Should you require immediate assistance, please send an email to [contact name] at [contact email] in my absence.
Thanks for your email. I’m currently attending [insert event, conference etc here], and will return on [date of return].
6. Out of Office Template #6 For the Person Who Likes to Live on the Edge (of HR Protocol) Hello, I’m currently offline for the holidays—which means I’m busy either
Ha reminds me of an admin here once who would leave like 10 bullet points on who to contact for what. We got a kick out of the point that was “for catering emergencies…contact…”.
I get really annoyed at people that don’t have put up OOO messages and I am left wondering if they are out or just ignoring me. I collaborated with a woman who was out frequently but never put an OOO. She also got very prickly if she felt you were going around her. So anytime we didn’t get a response from her, we had to go through this guessing game of “do we wait, do we talk to someone else, how important is our request.” I was glad when she moved on.
Unfortunately, I’m going to have to return your message. As it’s the holiday season, I’m currently away from the office. When I return, I’ll give your email a good solid read and find that your request is exactly what I needed after all! But until then, I’m going to keep it in the inbox so it doesn’t get damaged and revisit it after the holidays are over.
You are under no obligation to share the reason for your absence. Even if you’re on parental leave, “on leave” or “out of the office” is sufficient. Unfortunately, discrimination against pregnant people and parents happens, and if you don’t want to disclose that you’re on parental leave, you don’t have to.
I used to work at a place where we would occasionally send reports of network misuse that sometimes included inappropriate images the user had stored on work devices. One person had an email system that was somehow set up to make any attached images the profile pic for that account. So she would end up with random pornographic images as the profile pic whenever she received reports from us. She said she had no idea how to change it and could we please help? Since she was not part of our company, and I have no idea how that could even happen, I just started sending her kitten pictures after every report that included an image. Problem solved.
“Ideally, an OOO should include the basics,” says work and wellbeing psychologist Kate Sullivan. “The dates you'll be gone, an approximate timeline for when someone can expect to hear back from you upon your return, and how any urgent requests will be handled in your absence.”
How's that for an out-of-office message? Probably not ideal. As a working professional, emails are your lifeline. And even when you're not around to respond, you need to let senders know you're not actually ignoring them.
I’ll add “with limited access to email and voicemail” if I’m out because of work-related stuff (back when we used to have offsite meetings!), and “with no access to email and voicemail” if I’m truly on PTO.