My personal voicemail says that I prefer emails or texts when possible, and please leave a voicemail only as a last resort but either of the other two options will have a much faster response rate. I think I’ve gotten two voicemails in the last year.
Goofy dad joke that doesn’t require changing with the calendar. “What do you call a cephalopod carved out of ice? COOLAMARI.” You’re set for at least three vacations on that one.
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“The purpose isn’t to let people know you’re out of the office, it’s to let them know you're not going to be responding,” says Muse career coach Benjamin Ritter, founder of Live for Yourself Consulting. It’s not about where you are physically, but rather whether or not you’ll see someone’s email and be available to react to it within a typical timeframe (which could differ depending on your role, company, and industry).
Our store will be closed until the end of the week for [Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year]. We are happy to inform you that all of your emails will be answered once we are back on [date].
Dear Customer, Our office will be closed from [date] until [date] and close again for December and January to welcome the New Year. We wish you the warmest holiday. Regards, [Company name]
I will be out of the office for an extended period starting on (Starting date) until (End date).
My pet peeve is OOOs for the afternoon/an appointment when the person who set it up is NOT good at responding to emails in a timely fashion. If someone usually requires multiple reminders and follow up emails for me to get a reply to an email after 2 weeks, I don’t really need a notification that their responses will be delayed an hour until they get back from the doctor. It makes me think “who are you responding to that quickly, and why can’t you reply to me that fast??”
The one I’ve always wished I was brave enough to write was the one I once got which simply said:
If people know you are on vacation or maternity leave, for instance, they are more likely to wait for your return to follow up. If you are at a work conference, however, they might still expect you to check your email or provide updates.
Oh my gosh, this is funny! It does sound kinda like, “some things are more important than work, JAN.”
Next, click Send automatic replies.Tick the “Only send during this time range” box. Set the dates you’ll be out of the office. You can skip this step if you want to manually turn off automatic replies when you get back to the office.Then set your automatic out of office reply under the Inside My Organization tab. This will be the automatic response sent to people from your company who email you while you’re away.
In response to employee feedback, a University of Toledo winter break schedule became effective in December 2017 to provide eligible UToledo employees extra days off to rest when most departments are operationally slow - from Dec. 25, Christmas Day, through Jan. 1, New Year’s Day. Winter Break Policy
The big issue I have with the example in the post is that not only is it unnecessarily long-winded, but you have to listen through all the chattiness to get to the “here’s who to contact in a real emergency” part. The tone does rub me wrong, but I’m willing to roll with that as a personality/company culture thing.
I agree about the out of office reply. Made me laugh. Given that I work a high stress job, I can always use some laughter, so I actually don’t mind it.
Yeah, that’s not enough to stress over. Try coming back to tens of thousands after parental leave.
But really, I think people who know you WFH will get your meaning and people who don’t know you WFH won’t care or feel misled if they find out you really work from home.
If you’re anything like I am, you probably fall into team two. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to get creative. But if you plan ahead, you might be able to craft some hilarity.