“I’ve been whisked away by angry looking men in suits and taken to a small room with one light, a little water and a laptop. I’ve been told to write. I think these men are from my publisher. I’m hoping to be released on Thursday so I can start to responding to emails again.”
Or, in the case of Samarah Miel, owner of Amarillo Travel Network, her out of office message is a fabulous mix of sales/bonding with others in the industry/promoting her expertise to clients. Bonus points for including a video!
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على هذا من خلال موقعنا على الانترنت www.lawoffice-johndoe.de. شكرا جزيلا لاتصالكم - وداعا.
Or, worse, when someone has left the organization and the organization hasn’t bothered to put up an OOO, so I’m just emailing a blackhole until I call or someone finally checks that inbox. I never fail to set up my OoO reply, and yet most of my external contacts don’t get them. Let’s say I work for LlamaCombs, with an name(@)llamacombs.com address, and this is a company who has two clients AlpacaBrush and VicunaShampoo. I work primarily with the second, and their internal directory lists my contact info as name(@)vicunashampoo.com. It works because any e-mail sent to the second address is auto-forwarded to the first. Except it messes up OoO replies big time. Because the auto-reply is sent to my own alternate address, not to the original sender, and I have no way to change that.
You might receive multiple emails from coworkers and clients if you’re not specific about your absence dates, which will clog your inbox and make it hard for you to remain productive when you get back.
(first line in the second one refers to the new exec for our function starting that same week – an internal move). If I can get the date I’ll be back into the haiku I do, otherwise I put it afterwards, along with the person to contact in my absence. Obviously if I’m off sick or otherwise can’t be bothered I don’t do the haiku.
Q. If I must be on Main Campus and have been pre-approved by leadership to work during winter break, will there be lights and heating in my building?
As a “don’t try this at home” anecdote, last week we had an all staff retreat, and we were asked to put up away messages. I put a perfectly professional one up for outside email, but in a fit of whimsy, the internal mail triggered an away message that said “Why are you emailing? We are supposed to be paying attention to the retreat!” I figured, we were all at the retreat, so nobody would ever know. Of course, someone did email me 30 minutes before everything started, and triggered the message. Fortunately, he figured out it was an away message and thought it was funny.
The science fiction writer John Scalzi says “The failure mode of clever is asshole,” which seems to apply here.
Whatever style you may ultimately decide to adopt, each of these emails should feature these essential elements: Precise reference to the period in which you will be away, as the receiver will want to know when they can reach you again. Inform your correspondent about the date by which they can expect to receive a response to the email they send you during the holiday season. Indication that your will reply to the email when they return. Check Out these examples:
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Sometimes teams need the extra nudge to disconnect...here are our tips for getting your team to unplug from email over the holidays.
I’ve had several co-workers over the years use “at my earliest convenience” and it’s always rubbed me the wrong way. It just sounds kind of dismissive like, “I don’t care when you need it, I’ll get to it when I get to it.”
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I mean, I think we all know the breadth and depth at which one can express themselves via emojis. But an out of office that only uses emojis? Brilliant. If you create your own Out of Office emoji reply, I BEG you to post it in the comment section below.
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