I saw a version of this on IG that was an old school (paper) OOO from an associate pastor. It has a line like “if this is an emergency and you must speak to someone, Jesus is always available on the mainline.” Too funny.
Thank you for being part of our family. Happy holidays!From our family to yours, wishing you a joyful and warm holiday season!We appreciate you continuing to choose us. Here’s to a wonderful next year, too!We love working with you. Hoping you have a fantastic holiday season with plenty of festivities!Making the dream work requires clients like you who believe in us. Happy holidays!We appreciate your business. May you have a happy holiday season!Thank you for believing in us. Let’s look forward to an even better new year. Happy holidays!A big thank you for helping us reach new heights this year. Wishing you a warm holiday greeting!Thank you for choosing us! Happy holidays to you and your family.We value every customer. Happy holidays, and thank you for choosing us!Final Thoughts
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To my mind, it’s just a really bad idea to mass delete stuff that comes in while you’re out. You never know if those emails contain important (though non-actionable) information that you’ll need. You really can’t expect people to resend information like that once you’re back, especially if you were cc’d on something.
Work is important, and most of us go for a career, but we also need to have a break from time to time. Summer vacations are coming up, and you deserve to go soak up the sun on the beach for a while, or perhaps conquer a mountain top or two. And, if you are more of a skiing fan, you could just wait for the Winter to come. Another option is to simply stay at home and hibernate while binge-watching shows on Netflix. Even if you don’t have any particular plans, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take some time and disconnect from work for a while.
But despite these (fantastic) suggestions, the number one rule for choosing your out of office is that it reflects who you are as a person. Don’t change for anyone, especially not your auto-responder.
Any correspondence (email or phone calls) sent my way will be responded to within 2–3 days of my return.
I have traded a white Christmas, bulky sweaters, and hot chocolate for sandy beaches, sun tan lotion, and margaritas… and yes you guessed it I’m out of the office.
It’s my favorite time of year, which means I’m currently out of the office lounging on a Carribean beach, sipping on mojitos, and attempting to achieve the tan I’ve been waiting all year long for.
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.
The appropriate tone depends on the holiday. If you’re closing for Christmas or New Year’s, it’s safe to assume your customers expect you to be festive and maybe even humorous. Conversely, if you’re closed for Veterans’ day, your email should strike a more serious chord. Use our templates and double-check your tone before you hit send.
Over Twitter DMs, one woman sent me her OOO messages from when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The messages — composed while she was undergoing chemotherapy treatments and recovering from surgery — were detailed and unique. They offered touches of humor, honesty, details about her treatment schedules and set expectations for others trying to reach her. She offered alternative contact options for potential emailers to make sure urgent requests didn’t fall through the cracks but offered a dose or reality as well. I particularly appreciated this line:
5. It’s not all about Christmas, Cyber Monday, or Black Friday. When referring to the holidays, you might be thinking about Thanksgiving, Christmas, or maybe Hanukkah.
Also known as “autoresponder emails,” out-of-office messages run the gamut. From funny, to clever, to snarky, this message can both show your personality and let senders know that, well, you’re out of office.
This email comes from another one of my colleagues. The purpose of this email is to intercept messages during Thanksgiving, and the way in which it does so is, well, with thankfulness.
Use this response if you’re in a millennial workforce or you want to seem ‘down with the kids’. Or if you spend way too much time on Twitter. hitting your inbox between [date] and [date]; got sent to you unusually quickly and; is the same response no matter how many times you email;
When we were working from home (we’re mandated to be back in the office now), my voice mail message was something like “I check voice mail, but if you want a faster answer, please send me an email at [email protected]” And it’s amazing how much more to the point emails are than voice mails! Much less “Well, this is unusual (it’s not) and needs the whole backstory (it doesn’t)” and 15 minutes later getting to the actual question (“can I do this thing that a regulation clearly indicates I can’t do”)
The following examples and text ideas can be used for almost any kind of holiday / vacation messages. You can switch the language of the text blocks by pressing the tab button.