When you’ve finally powered your way through that seemingly endless to-do list and are ready to check out of work-mode once and for all, there’s one final thing you need to take care of: Setting your out-of-office response.
My new job provided a template OOO as part of the onboarding brand templates package! I’m sure it might seem like overkill to some, but I’ve had tons of nervous first-job employees ask me what theirs should say, so I loved that they just gave a sample to go from. Also goes a long way in communicating that unique office culture stuff that is usually unspoken/not formalized.

But perhaps we have it all wrong, and are simply enslaving ourselves further to technology by toiling over OOOs that are personality-packed, marketing-friendly perfection. Maybe we need to be altogether more standoffish if we want to make our OOOs really work for us? NYU Professor Meredith Broussard, who’s the author of Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World, takes the inspiration for her OOO from US writer, poet and children’s author E.B. White, who once turned down an invitation from President Eisenhower with the words “I must decline, for secret reasons”. Accordingly, Broussard’s OOO reads simply: “I am out of the office, for secret reasons.”
Maybe you’re still available on email, but your location means there might be a little bit of an issue with time differences. This response is clever and a little bit geeky!