Happy holidays! I am currently out of the office, with no email access. I’ll be returning on (insert date) and will get back to you as soon as I can. Happy holidays!
I know I’m so late on this, but my FAVORITE one I’ve ever gotten was from one of my company’s Presidents (so a very high up muckity muck type).
.
Education Details: Example 2. [Your Greeting] I will be out of the office this week. If you need assistance while I’m away, please contact [Name] at [Email]. Best, [Your Name] Example 3. [Your Greeting] Your message is important to me and I will respond as soon as possible.
After I tweeted this example, dozens of people sent me examples of OOO messages they’d set or particularly good examples they’d seen in the wild. One example from a boss (via a TikTok) who offers emailers a decision tree of sorts. “Option 1.) Wait it out. Ask yourself, ‘is this urgent and important?’ If not, take a beat…you and I will be better off with this expectation set now,” the email begins. This one stands out because it’s extremely detailed, manages expectations and also offers who to contact in different situations. It models good behavior of taking time off, but also gives the original sender a variety of option. Most importantly, the responder forces the original sender to assess whether this is actually an urgent request.
As long as you’ve covered the basics—dates of your absence and who to contact in your absence—you should be good to go.
With technological advancements, you always have access to your work and contacts, making it difficult to be offline even when you are not physically present in the office. However, it sometimes becomes a necessity to step away and treat yourself to a vacation.
In this image, you’re letting people know you’re OOO with a “Missing” notice on a milk carton. Genius. Just be careful — this sort of autoresponder is best for internal emails, not for autoresponders that get sent to prospects and clients.
3.) Welcome to the John Doe AG. Our offices in Berlin are now closed for a holiday. You can reach us on working days from Monday to Friday from 9am to noon and 1pm to 6pm. For general inquiries you can also send us an email to [email protected]. Thank you very much. We wish you a nice day - your John Doe AG.
Now, make sure you take care of the additional settings for DND and turn off “Scheduled.” Make sure the phone can set on DND mode “Always,” otherwise you can expect some calls while the phone is not locked, which may ruin your vacation.
I think the problem is that “at your earliest convenience” is a formulaic convention that uses explicit, almost exaggerated politeness to basically issue a stern direction, meaning “as soon as you possibly can”. When you turn it into “at my earliest convenience” it’s unclear if you mean “whenever it’s convenient for me to get to it” (what the words say) or “as soon as I possibly can” (what the meaning of the formulaic original is). Or else it sounds like you didn’t quite understand how “at your earliest convenience” works.
I am the LW! It’s interesting, having Alison type out the OOO reply comes across less condescending than how it did in video. I’m sure it works for their office but it also says a lot, potentially, about their culture that she’d need to write something out like that in the first place! Usually “I’m OOO from X to X, please contact X for (reason)” should suffice.
9. Office Closed for Christmas. Use this template for Christmas holidays. Hi (specify the Name field id), Our office will remain closed for Christmas. We assure you that all your emails will be answered as soon as we return to the office.
Research shows that vacations are beneficial to our physical and mental health, work performance, and productivity. To replicate this research, I’m conducting a participant observation study until DATE, and will be out of the office. In the interim, if you have an urgent request, please reach out to EMPLOYEE. Otherwise, I’ll be in touch upon my return.
I’ve honestly considered changing my OOO message/voicemail to “You’ve reached Lisa. I’m overwhelmed right now, so I’ll get back to you eventually.”
I had a friend in high school whose voicemail was him singing that song. However, I didn’t have cable at the time (living in a rural area in the early 2000s) and didn’t get the reference. I thought he was soooo clever!
I might sound nitpicky but the language is important. “Might” or “may be” or “slower than usual” are vague and don’t offer the sender all that much information about when you’re really going to respond to them. Worse, they do a horrible job of protecting the time of the email receiver who, as the responder notes, is not in the office! Such a responder implies that, not only will the vacationer reply to the email, but they may not even miss a beat. They may be slow to respond, but they also might not.
I don’t think a lot of people working there made a habit of doing that, which is why a lot of people felt the no external OOO policy was excessive.