No matter what your message says, just make sure you have one – it’s the polite and professional thing to so. To help you get started, we’ve put together some examples you can test, tweak, use, and share with colleagues.
I will be out of the office until *date*. My colleague *Name* will be happy to assist you.
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Josh Kopelman’s vacation email is a classic example of taking a blunt approach at OOO messages.
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.
While you certainly don’t want to go on and on in your message, there is an opportunity to engage or educate while you’re away. Here are a few options to potentially include.
While I won’t be quite as far and remote as the North Pole, I will still be completely disconnected from my inbox until my return. So if you require immediate assistance, please send your email to [Contact Name] at [contact email]. Out of Office Template #5 For the Person Who Will Be Checking in (Reluctantly)
If you are eligible for winter break but are required to work because you provide an essential service, your supervisor will notify you well in advance.
I once left a kind of breezy, fun out of office message for “people inside my organization” that said the literal truth: “I am out of office this week at a mountain resort where I have paid many hundreds of dollars for someone to take my electronics away from me. I’ll get back to you Monday,” and a very normal and professional OOO for “people outside my organization.” Needless to say I returned to a message from a senior (but not, I stress, my boss or even on my team) colleague calling me out on it. People surely can make things their business.
Now the last part is to bring up the DND mode to the Control Center, where you can turn on the DND mode to make your iPhone respond to calls and messages with an automated vacation message that you set.
Option 1: Wait it out. Ask yourself, “Is this urgent and important?” If it isn’t, take a beat and give me a chance to respond after I dig myself out of my inbox later this week. You and I will be better off with this expectation set now.
I get really annoyed at people that don’t have put up OOO messages and I am left wondering if they are out or just ignoring me. I collaborated with a woman who was out frequently but never put an OOO. She also got very prickly if she felt you were going around her. So anytime we didn’t get a response from her, we had to go through this guessing game of “do we wait, do we talk to someone else, how important is our request.” I was glad when she moved on.
My office has a shared vacation calendar, which I think is a more helpful way to handle this.
Additional resources: You might include a link to one of your webpages or a download if it provides information that can be useful to people while you are away.
Thanks for your note! I’ll be OOO from [date] to [date] and will not have access to email during that time. If this is an urgent matter, please contact [Contact Name] at [contact email].
Yup, it’s that time of the year again where everyone’s slipping into the holiday mood 🎄🎁
If those weren’t bad enough, if anyone on that lists sets up an out-of-office message, it *automatically* replies all. If the email bounces back, it bounces back reply all. One guy left the company and his email had a permanent out-of-office auto reply. The list was quite busy for a month or so and the message popped up multiple times a day.
I just want short and sweet. Mine says, “I will be out of the office until X Date. If you need assistance before then, please contact my department at [email protected] or (000)000-0000. I will reply to messages when I return.”