it’s not your standard email response. It’s [your name’s] out-of-office because [he/she/they] are on holidays and will respond when they return.
But I also believe there’s meaningful power in the mundane cultural norms we set and practice. Email, for better or worse, makes up a large chunk of how knowledge workers communicate. So much of this communication is muddled by broken email habits and larger anxieties around performing productivity. We’re constantly nervous about asking too much of others or doing too little on behalf of our coworkers. But we’re also stuck in work patterns that force us to communicate constantly and normalize working and demanding things from colleagues at all hours.
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Here are some of the common questions and answers about holiday messages to employees.
John Whatsisname has retired. Please contact [insert name and email] for enquiries relating to [subjects], or myself at [email] for personal matters. Thank you to my colleagues and clients for your support over the years.
Walk through your office and take a look at your electronics and other potential energy drains. Since you will not be in the office, there is no reason to pay for electricity that you are not using. Make sure that you handle your shutdown properly.
If you need assistance during this time, one of my team members will be able to help. They can be contacted at [phone number] Monday-Friday from 8-5.
(Depending on your email host, the process of setting up your out of office assistant may vary. You can find a guide on how to access your out of office settings in Outlook here.)
The holiday benefit is available to U.S. regular, full-time staff members. Staff members whose employment terms are for four months or less are not regular full-time staff members.
Hi Thanks for your email. I’ll be away from the office until [MM/DD] and will respond as soon as I can. For all support requests/needs, please reach out to [email] and one of my colleagues will be happy to assist you.
I work for a Japanese company which has a regular rotation of engineers who come over for 2-4 years so we get some enjoyable translations for all manner of communication.
In this image, you’re letting people know you’re OOO with a “Missing” notice on a milk carton. Genius. Just be careful — this sort of autoresponder is best for internal emails, not for autoresponders that get sent to prospects and clients.
Interesting! I’d be unpleasantly surprised and tempted to scold them for not taking a proper break.
Hello, Happy holidays! Thank you for your email; we are currently closed for the Easter holidays. It won’t be possible to respond to our email as I have limited access to the internet. But once I am back I will respond as quickly as usual. Kind Regards,
The vice-chancellor of [X] University is extremely pleased to announce the winter vacations from the 25th of December to the 6th of January 20XX. All the offices of the University Campus enclosed for the said period. Have a safe holiday and enjoy the break.
Oct 09, 2020 · Here’s what I came up with when I did this exercise. They are all good examples of good questions to start a conversation: “I like indoor plants. It makes the room much nicer.” “That’s a great design for a kitchen.” “You can see really far from here.” “I love the coffee smell.”
Thank you for your email! I am on vacation. Vacations are not for checking email, so I won’t be doing that. Fortunately, we rarely encounter life and death situations in the world of [INDUSTRY TYPE], and aren’t we all glad for that? If you think I’m checking email because you just received an email from me, that is only because I figured out the pixies that send emails on a schedule. Really, I’m not checking email.
Oh my gosh, yes! This also drives me crazy. The game of emailing 15 people because they are all out and pointing to each other as their back up. Infuriating.