My pet peeve is when people put a contact in there but then don’t include their contact info, assuming anyone would have it. I don’t always and that’s super annoying.
I kept it even though I received it four years ago because it made me laugh so much!
.
7. Out of Office for a Family Vacation. This is a great template to use if you’re on a family vacation. Hey (specify the Name field id), Thanks for your email.
Website: https://www.exclaimer.com/email-signature-handbook/10091-top-10-christmas-email-signature-tips
Yeah this sort of chain is why we got an out of office address for each department. It went to the managers who were never all off at the same time.
Some people keep theirs quite corporate and formal, adopting a to-the-point notification, i.e.:
Select File > Automatic Replies. Select Send automatic replies.Select Only send during this time range.Choose the dates and times you'd like to set your automatic reply for.Type in a message.Select OK.
I think important context here is that no matter what the details added were, it always had this aggressive tone of “I’m taking a break and breaks are IMPORTANT”. Which I agree with, but it felt like it was almost aggressive/accusatory, and more importantly: this person was without a doubt the meanest, cruelest, least understanding and empathetic person I’ve ever worked with who ran her staff into the ground with urgent demands and expectations.
Notice of Office Closure for Holiday for Whole Day/ Early Closing. It is always advisable that the notice of any holiday, when the office will remain closed, should be given well in advance - so that no employee is put to inconvenience of coming to the office on a day when it is closed.
While the above is almost certainly a dramatisation, getting your out-of-office message right over the holiday period is arguably as important as all other facets of business. Cashflow? Investments? Who needs ’em when you’ve got an auto-response that’ll make people chortle!
Probably a lot of overlap with the same type of person who feels the need to justify every sick day to all their coworkers, like they’re afraid of being judged for being absent. (Yes thank you Jane I don’t care that you were up half the night with a plumbing issue, you don’t need to convince me that you’re tired enough to take the day off)
My husband does this with his phone (not a number he uses for work). My parents do this as well and I can’t figure out if it’s due to lack of tech skills or not wanting to deal with voicemails (I think it’s a combination). I had surgery a couple years ago and had to give the hospital all three numbers and then my brother an hour away as backup since he’s the only one besides me with functional voicemail.
Not only did Kopelman manage to turn his out-of-office message into an epic poem of sorts, but also, he actually went through the trouble of creating a delightfully snarky, vacation-specific email address for his recipients.
In my world, “please contact $Manager” is recognition of a staffing level problem. $Manager will have to decide what project to defer if a crisis comes up while someone is OOO.
The science fiction writer John Scalzi says “The failure mode of clever is asshole,” which seems to apply here.
Thanks so much for reaching out. I’m currently attending the [conference/event name] from [date] to [date] and will have limited access to email during this time.
We also had company wide announcements that all of Spain was going on holiday in July, and then France would be gone on August, so please wrap up any business for the summer before then :’)