Home Coaching Ontológico Apple Project Management Marketing About 18 Funny Out-of-Office Messages to Inspire Your Own [+ Templates]
Our office will be closed for our Thanksgiving Holiday on [date]. The office will reopen on [date].
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What’s the best way to spread the festive cheer? Getting your email senders excited about your favourite holiday of course! Here’s a great one: Season’s greetings! It’s my favorite time of the year, which means I’m currently out-of-office stuffing my face with cookies, sipping on cocktails, and watching [your favourite holiday movie] for the 67th time. I’ll be back at work on [date] and will respond to your email then. If you need immediate assistance, the other elves in the workshop are happy to help out! You can reach them at [email] or [phone]. Happy ho-ho-holidays,
That’s why I instituted group email addresses/boxes for this use (I had to fight with IT to have one created in the early days). Yes, everyone has their individual email in addition to the group mailbox.
I wouldn’t be offended or consider saying anything to anyone who included this in their out of office message, but even as someone who is in a religion that forbids use of electronics on most holidays, I still think this message is 1) TMI; 2) doesn’t convey what it needs to convey unless you are explaining that you don’t use electronics during holidays, in which case you can just include that you won’t be checking email without including the religious explanation; 3) would come across to me as inclusion of personal information I don’t need, which would therefore strike an unprofessional tone,and I wouldn’t understand why you felt the need to include that info. How about “I’m out of the office without access to internet or email until (date). If you need assistance before this date, please contact…” Like I said, I think your colleagues are overreacting, but in general I would advise to leave all personal information out of your auto-reply — vacation, medical leave, religious observance, etc. — people do not need to know why you are out.
I have always said that I’m taking annual leave so that still applies for me – but that’s pretty standard for my company.
I wonder if anyone ever calculated how much time was wasted producing those messages.
What’s the best way to spread the festive cheer? Getting your email senders excited about your favourite holiday of course! Here’s a great one: Season’s greetings! It’s my favorite time of the year, which means I’m currently out-of-office stuffing my face with cookies, sipping on cocktails, and watching [your favourite holiday movie] for the 67th time. I’ll be back at work on [date] and will respond to your email then. If you need immediate assistance, the other elves in the workshop are happy to help out! You can reach them at [email] or [phone]. Happy ho-ho-holidays,
I think the problem is that “at your earliest convenience” is a formulaic convention that uses explicit, almost exaggerated politeness to basically issue a stern direction, meaning “as soon as you possibly can”. When you turn it into “at my earliest convenience” it’s unclear if you mean “whenever it’s convenient for me to get to it” (what the words say) or “as soon as I possibly can” (what the meaning of the formulaic original is). Or else it sounds like you didn’t quite understand how “at your earliest convenience” works.
Before you put your coworker’s email address on your out-of-office message, get their approval and discuss a plan for handling requests and passing responsibilities back when you return.
And if you suspect that you won’t look through all those emails that cluttered up your inbox while you were on a vacation at all? Be honest about it and tell your prospects to contact you again at a certain date.
With that in mind, we’ve put together five simple examples of what your out-of-office message could look like, from the wild and wacky to the simple and fact-y. And if you’re not sure about the logistics of actually setting your auto-responder, here’s a quick guide on how to do that.
We sent a message from the Android phone to the iPhone number that has already been set in vacation settings. And finally, we received an auto-reply text from iPhone to the Android phone.
I am out of the office from [date range]. If you need immediate assistance, please contact [name, title and contact information].
If you’re out for the day, I think you literally just need to say “I’m not in the office today, but I’ll respond to your message as soon as I’m back.” If people need an answer to something today, they’re smart enough to figure out they need to ask somebody else.
Mine said this when I was in the hospital and I didn’t know if I’d be back in two weeks or six.
I will be out of the office starting (Starting Date) through (End Date) returning(Date of Return).