It’s really on you to stay up to stuff, manage requests coming in, manage your time and workload. You shouldn’t expect all your coworkers, customers, people you work with to cater to your personal schedule.
Hi, Thank you for your email! I am on vacation until [MM/DD]. Vacations are not for checking email, so I won’t be doing that. During my absence, please contact [name] at [email] or [phone] because she’s checking email. Not me. Really, I’m not checking email.
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Save small-bizsense.com https://small-bizsense.com/professional-out-of-office-autoresponder-email-messages/
When you’re out for the holidays, how can you express your thrill for the season without sounding, well, cheesy?
Some people keep theirs quite corporate and formal, adopting a to-the-point notification, i.e.:
Thank you for your email. I’m currently out of the store on holidays. I will be returning on [return date].
Hahahahaha, reminds me of the time the entire giant department (hundreds of people) had to sit through a SLIDE SHOW of a higher up’s trip to Europe, in person. They sent a survey afterwards–thankfully anonymous–and I said it was extremely inappropriate to make us sit through his holiday snaps when most of us can’t go on vacation at all and it was supposed to be a WORK meeting.
“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.”
It’s my favorite time of year, which means I’m currently away from my inbox chugging mugs of cocoa, stuffing my face with cookies, and attempting to fulfill my life-long goal of memorizing every single line of [your favorite holiday movie].
Crafting an out of office message can be plenty of fun and we're about to show you how with our Mad Libs version!
There’s a term that we like to use around here called “snowbirds,” which is used to describe those who once resided in the northern part of the U.S., only to flee to warmer parts of the country during the winter.
“I will be away on a vacation from June 3 to June 14. For urgent queries, you can call [person] at [phone number].”
Website: https://www.wordexceltemplates.com/office-closed-for-holidays-email-template/
I can’t remember if this was just an outgoing voice message before routing you to an individual, or for a voicemail, but I remember a fun December phone message from a small company (I think an insurance agency) sung to the tune of a Christmas carol–something like Jingle Bells. The content was something like: you’ve reached our office during this holiday season, hope your holidays are happy, please 1) leave a message or 2) press X for who you want. Other than the tune, it wasn’t overly holiday-centric (for those who don’t celebrate the holidays) and it was cute.
Website: https://futureofworking.com/25-best-office-closed-for-holiday-message-templates/
I worked at an office where we used OOO messages on voicemail pretty regularly and if we forgot to change the message, our callers were quick to tell us the outgoing message was outdated. That end date feature would have been a big help for us! A local council in Wales needed to get a road sign translated into Welsh. (All official signs in Wales have to be in both English and Welsh.) They got an out of office message in Welsh from the translator they contacted, assumed that was the translation and printed the out of office message on the sign. They didn’t realise their mistake till a Welsh speaker pointed it out…
My snarky colleague sure did in his out-of-office message below. We send thank-you letters in response to holiday gifts, so it’s only natural to expect the same gesture in our work inboxes …