When I’m back in the office and going through emails, I’ll sometimes send a note of “I’m catching up on my emails and saw you had XX question – did you still need help with that?” before doing any in-depth research.
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Apparently, people receiving such a notification rarely get angry. "The response is basically 99% positive, because everybody says, 'That's a real nice thing, I would love to have that too,'" Daimler spokesman Oliver Wihofszki told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Holiday envy has been replaced by corporate email policy envy.
In most cases, the voice of your out of office message should be similar to the voice you’re using while communicating with clients. If you’re usually formal, replying with a joke could be jarring — and vice versa. Your mileage may vary, but keep that in mind before setting up an automatic reply.
Don't leave your sender guessing. Let them know when you'll be out and the date you'll be back in the office — not when you're returning home.
Careful. Holiday revelry and debauchery ahead. Proceed with caution (if you dare).
One of my co-workers, who was involved in a lot of committees and consequently got even more than the usual share of email around my place, put up an OOO message that said she was going to be “on pot for the week of the 15th.”
The head of llama engagement called my boss and reamed her out for my “poor behaviour” and then called me and reamed me out, too. She said it didn’t matter if project X was the biggest thing our company did all year – her requests took precedence.
Then, all that’s left to do is turn it on before you abandon your desk, and get prepared for a relaxing holiday break—without feeling the need to be constantly tethered to your inbox.
17. "Hello! You've gotten the voicemail of [your name]. Leave your name, contact info, and the answer to the eternal question ‘Which came first, the chicken or the egg?' Anyone who gets it right will receive a call back."
Same. There are a few people that are regularly in charge of things I need from them, but are part time. The vast majority of our office is full time. I have no idea when they’ll get back to me, or if I should email someone else. If I saw an OOO message every time they were gonna be gone Th-Fri, I would learn their schedule faster, and hopefully have the most up to date info about “oh, they changed their schedule due to Memorial Day, I can email them and get a response quicker this week” or whatever the issue is.
On the funnier side, my vacations tend to be trips to either see my favorite band in far flung places or going to conventions for my hobby, so for a while I added a checklist at the end of my OOO that said:
Also, you need to know your audience if you are going to go eccentric. Alison mentions that this message is fine in their culture, but it wouldn’t npbe appropriate for my somewhat formal field. And even if your workplace in general is casual, you might be contacted by someone outside. (In a tiny provincial courthouse I served in the past, there is a story going around that in the 80s a junior but elderly clerk used to address phone callers as hun and sweetheart and generally speak very informally. Most people thought it was funny, and then the President of Supreme Court called and… he didn’t).
People often forget the power of an out of office message. One could even start their own language, as shown below:
I understand how important it is for you to get the information and services that you need, however, I am no longer with Jones Consulting.
Apparently, people receiving such a notification rarely get angry. "The response is basically 99% positive, because everybody says, 'That's a real nice thing, I would love to have that too,'" Daimler spokesman Oliver Wihofszki told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Holiday envy has been replaced by corporate email policy envy.
The reason for the OOOs for staff taking half-days? They didn’t want to check the shared office calendar where our time off was recorded. UGH