Hopefully they drop it because it doesn’t seem appropriate. If they don’t, I’d suggest something like Today is National Pirate Day, today is John Lennon birthday under your signature. It’s a fun random fact without being offensive and easy enough to do. Yet also a pain in the ass of course; )
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Usually also right before a deadline, after ignoring warnings about said deadline for 3 weeks.
Thankfully, with a simple out of office message taking a day off doesn’t mean that your communication with clients has to stop.
If you are planning to head out on vacation or step away from your office for a few days- creating an out of office autoresponder email message is essential (and even more important for email
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On the funnier side, my vacations tend to be trips to either see my favorite band in far flung places or going to conventions for my hobby, so for a while I added a checklist at the end of my OOO that said:
Write a short, direct subject line.State your purpose for writing.Include the dates you're requesting.Consider mentioning why you're taking time off.Discuss how you're preparing for time off.Remain available for questions.
The reason I did it was that the first time I took maternity leave, I came back to thousands of irrelevant emails. It was a chore to sort through them, and finding the ones that were still relevant was like finding a needle in a haystack. And it wasn’t just a waste of *my* time – I often had to reach out to email senders only to hear that no further action was needed, so I was wasting their time too.
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If your message requires a response faster than that, please email my manager at [email protected].
But I’ve also seen this tactic used for a week’s vacation, which seems… aggressive.
“I will be out of the office between date and date. If your email requires urgent attention please contact Insert Name Here.” Imo that’s enough
If your request is urgent, don’t sit around. Send your request to [contact’s name] at [contact’s email].
A literary agent I follow told the story of a long argument her autoreply had with a would-be author. She’d set up the outbound email while out of town and apparently an author who queried her with his book took offense to it. He replied back in frustration that he didn’t get a personal response. Her autoreply sent back another automated message, which he then in increasing anger kept responding to.
The problem is that some people will just keep the old message, with contact information for their coverage and whatnot. If you do this, it’s important to change the date.
So what do good out-of-office messages look like? Here are a handful of examples that will help you craft the perfect out-of-office message: