I will be out of the office celebrating Canada Day (July 1), World UFO Day (July 2nd), Tom Cruise’s Birthday (July 3rd) and July 4th (July 4th.) It’s also National Picnic Month so let’s just reconnect in August, shall we?
Image Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/hilarious-out-of-office-email-auto-replies
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If your email client allows it, you could always just use an image to express your out-office sentiment, like this one. After all, they say that a picture is worth a thousand words — and visual content is still essential to successful marketing.
Giving the option to contact an email address containing "interruptyourvacation" provides two things — 1) A dose of humor, and 2) discouragement from actually doing what the name suggests. Plus, he prefaces it with a request for empathy, by explaining that he promised quality time to his family.
Sample voicemail message for office or department: “Thank you for calling The University of Toledo’s (office/department). The University is closed for winter break. Please call back after New Year’s Day or visit our website at (website URL). Thank you and happy holidays.”
A) Trying not to roll my eyes at this year’s new batch of corny holiday movies (which all seem to follow the same plot)
She continues: “However, there should be a way for whoever is emailing you to have an urgent request handled, and that should be included as part of your OOO as well as being known to your work team (supervisor and colleagues). That might look like including a coworker's email on your OOO or it might simply involve setting a forwarding rule for while you're away, so that your email goes to the colleague who's covering.”
Of course that all depends on if you have employees, etc., but i’ve seen those dynamics recently and think it’s interesting to see who someone leaves as their OOO contact. What do you guys think? Am I reading too much into it?
Automatic email replies. The IS&T Knowledge Base (KB) details how to set up automatic replies for your MIT email through the Exchange service or on Outlook. Both allow you to set the start and end date of the auto-response and to choose if everyone will receive this auto-reply or only those within MIT.
No matter what your message says, just make sure you have one – it’s the polite and professional thing to so. To help you get started, we’ve put together some examples you can test, tweak, use, and share with colleagues.
Thanks so much for your email. I took today off to [rest/relax/travel/spend time with family]. In an effort to come back fully recharged, I won’t be spending today with my phone attached to my hand. (Scary, I know.) Don’t worry, though, because I will be checking in every so often and responding to anything urgent.
Use your auto-reply to promote your expertise—you're going to a well-known industry conference, after all. You multitask and use your out of office to connect with colleagues/clients who are also attending the conference or event.
To then turn it off after your break, you follow the same steps but this time you simply check Vacation Responder Off instead of Vacation Responder On.
Thank you for your message. I am out of the office from May 1-6 with limited email access. If you need immediate assistance, please contact my assistant editor, Alex Jordan, at [email protected] or 555-432-6100. Otherwise, I will respond to messages upon my return.
5. Out of the Office this Week with Alternative Contact Email. [Greeting] I will be out of the office this entire week. For all urgent matters that need immediate assistance, then please contact
I hope you will be celebrating the season soon. However, if your email is time-sensitive, please contact [Alternate Name] at [alternate email] and one of our busy elves will be happy to help.
I can’t agree that holding on to a request for a week or so is akin to groveling.