I actually hate that feature – I LOVE manually updating it myself but I know most of my coworkers benefit from having it that way.
Each time McClure makes an appearance in these out-of-office messages, he “speaks” on behalf of my colleague and alludes to the previous auto-responses in which he starred. It’s a mild form of self-deprecating humor — as if to say, “I know, I’m out of the office again” — made only funnier by the made-up teaser title included in the last line.
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I worked with a guy years ago who would update his voicemail greeting literally every time he left the office. So the bare minimum would be that he’d record a new message when he arrived in the office in the morning. Then, when leaving for lunch he’d record a new greeting listing the time he would be back in the office, then he’d record a new message when he got back from lunch, then a new one at the end of the day saying he would be back in the morning. That’s not even counting the times he was out of the office on work business. It was deranged, especially since he had the type of job where he would normally be in and out of the office often.
I’m on PTO (Holiday) from the 28.09 until the 02.10 working again on the 5th of October, due to this my response will be delayed.
This is what I’ve seen most often in my career. Problem is, the contact is almost always the admin. I’m the admin. Everyone’s idea of assistance is different. Often, I didn’t have the knowledge about the issue in order to be of any assistance. I wound up spending more time running around looking for answers than actually working on what was on my own plate. It’s exhausting. Otherwise known as “please don’t call us for unicorn problems when we handle llamas. Literally, we can’t do anything for unicorn problems.”
Sorry, you missed me. I’ll be away from the office until [date]. As my inbox didn’t join me on this trip, I will only be responding to emails only when I return. That will be on [date].
“Greetings. I’m away on holidays for a week and unable to respond to your call/message. I will return to the office on Jan. 20 and respond to you at the earliest. Hope to talk to you soon.”
At my old job we had a short script for our voice mail messages including whether we were in the office or out of the office. We were specifically told not to say why we were out of the office for personal privacy and protection reasons. However, an exception was soon made–for jury duty. Callers were getting freaked out when they got the message “I’m out of the office and don’t know when I will return.” They would be worried about the person they were calling and worried about whether or not they would be able to get the info they needed. So if on jury duty we would say, “I’m out of the office on jury duty and don’t know when I will return.”
But let’s talk out-of-office messages: overshares, excessive detail, the ones that self-aggrandize (I once had a coworker whose auto-replies often said he’d be in late because he “pulled an all-nighter” on various work projects, etc.), the ones that never get turned off, people who don’t use them at all, and other pet peeves.
Don’t stress about what to say in your out-of-office messages. Keep it simple, concise, and the people reaching out to you will know exactly what to do or when they’ll hear from you. And, most importantly, enjoy your time off! By Erin Ollila / May 16th, 2021 / Categories: Professional Development / Tags: holidays, out-of-office, time off, vacation, work, work from home, work life balance
In the Message and Language section, select the language and enter text, images, and hyperlinks into the Message field. For instructions on language and the use of snippets, click here. Pro Tip: Within the message body, we recommend that you don't use phrases such as: "We are currently out of the office" or "Our office hours are....." Instead, use generic phrases such as "We have received your message and will be in touch." This approach protects your SLA in marketplaces that use detectors to discourage automated responses, which look for these key phrases and may not approve the message as a valid response to reset the SLA.
Actually, it isn’t working other than when I am driving. I’ve contacted AT&T, and Apple today. It won’t just set as an auto reply whenever it is needed. I have clients texting me right now after hours and it is so stressful when I am trying to decompress and get away from the work day at night. Do you have any tips?? HELP!!
My old job was like that! It was so, so annoying. I understood requiring us to update our voicemails if we were out of the office that day, but it was just a waste of a few minutes every single morning.
Voicemail is also horrible for non-native speakers. I’m reasonably fluent in German but have to listen to voicemails at least 3 times to get everything. Why people can’t just type a text message is beyond me.
Hi, I’ll be back on {MM/DD]. please contact [name] at [email] or [phone] if you really, really, really think it’s urgent. Otherwise, I’ll respond when I get back.
4.) Herzlich willkommen bei Mustermann Solutions . Wegen einer firmeninternen Veranstaltung ist heute unser Sekretariat nicht erreichbar.Sie können uns aber gerne eine Nachricht hinterlassen. Ab Montag stehen wir Ihnen wieder persönlich zur Verfügung. Vielen Dank für Ihr Verständnis.
“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.”