I will always assume it is an inability to interact in an adult fashion with the world of technology. There is no good reason to avoid voicemails so aggressively – those that are doing so should probably be seeking therapy to overcome their issues with technology and/or the human voice. A lot of us process text faster and more accurately than speech, especially poor-audio-quality speech recorded by someone who didn’t bother to leave all the relevant information. Most voice mails are bad.
The OOO: was there ever a less apt acronym? (Ooo? Ugh, more like.) It wouldn’t be so bad if it actually worked when it was your turn to set one up, but unless you happen to live in France, where a worker’s ‘right to disconnect’ is enshrined in law, the twin fears of missed opportunities and the mail mountain that’s piling up in your absence will likely keep you furtively glancing at your in-box.
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Yep, tech worker here and I didn’t even bat an eye at this when I saw it on TikTok.
If you centre-align that it resembles a Christmas tree, and I coloured the font accordingly :D
My outgoing voicemail message says “Please don’t leave me a voicemail, send me an email instead”
The one I’ve always wished I was brave enough to write was the one I once got which simply said:
That is kind of glorious. And it does make sense when the person you’re emailing is gone for months. I did something similar my last mat leave except I didn’t explicitly state it, and lo and behold, people figured out that I wasn’t going to catch their email from a month or so earlier unless they brought it up again.
However, when I email the backup person I also cc the original person. If the issue gets totally resolved, the original person is well aware. If the issue is not resolved, the original person can pick it up pretty easily.
I’m guessing that this comment was gratuitously cruel on purpose just for the lulz, but I’ll give it a serious response anyway:
Brief Out of Office Message. While it’s vital that you get the main points across in any vacation email, brevity is important. If you’re looking for something a little more to-the-point, try this one
I think simple is best, and also safest. I found the message in the post amusing as an AAM article, but if I had contacted this person on a serious and/or urgent work matter I would probably be annoyed by the comedy skit. And I was contacting them because they had messed up somehow, it would land very badly.
Don’t know if those happen due to bad software, or a bad configuration decision, or just careless users, but those exhaust me.
So you've said your farewells and it's time to pack up your desk before getting escorted out. While you're there, you might as well create an out of office message to any hapless person that missed out on the news of your leaving.
You need to let colleagues, clients, and prospects know that you won’t be available, while ensuring that they know the best course of action to take while you’re away.
People often forget the power of an out of office message. One could even start their own language, as shown below:
I suppose it’s better than a colleague of mine who’s out of office is always: “I am out of the office until XXX. Please email me if you need assistance.”