I’ll be back at my desk on [date] and will respond to your message immediately. In case you need urgent assistance, please forward an email to [contact name] at [contact email] so that Santa’s little helpers at our shop may look into it.
Will this work if the phone is off or in airplane mode? I’m leaving the country and I can almost guarantee someone is going to text me and then get really mad even though I told them I was leaving.
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Don’t beat around the bush! This is an expression that means you should get to the point. That is, you should make your message direct and brief. This will let the recipient quickly know that you’re not available and who they can contact instead. You can start with a simple greeting and then proceed to the message like in the following examples:
I will be away from 03.04.2020 until 13.04.2020. For urgent matters, you can contact (COLLEAGUE NAME).
If you are checking emails while you’re out and are responding slower than normal, state that, suggests Jill Gugino Panté, director of the Lerner Career Services Center at the University of Delaware. “If you don’t have access to email and can’t return messages, state that as well,” she says. “The clearer you are in your messaging, the better.”
And while it may seem like a simple thing, if your out-of-office message is unclear or incomplete, it can cause problems while you’re out and when you return.
I’m with you, honestly! When the end was “she’s So great” and not “she’s so [sime negative adjective]” I was actually surprised. I thought it was annoying and condescending and all around extra. But I guess I see why some people (including the ooo boss) would think it’s funny.
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Or they work with one or more of those people that call you 5 minutes after sending an email if you don’t reply.
With that in mind, we’ve put together five simple examples of what your out-of-office message could look like, from the wild and wacky to the simple and fact-y. And if you’re not sure about the logistics of actually setting your auto-responder, here’s a quick guide on how to do that.
I am currently on annual leave and I return to the office on Monday 21st September. I will reply to your email as soon as possible.
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Yeah, I do think some are pretty funny (eg tan lines) and some are not so terrible, but I honestly think she took them incredibly seriously and wasn’t trying to make her colleagues laugh as much as just ….. put out an air of “look how personable and authentic I am”. She also lamented that other people’s OOOs were “rigid” and why couldn’t people have fun?! Which again, sounds not so bad but was someone who would regularly ask prying inappropriate personal questions, so it came across less like “let’s loosen up” and more like “why won’t people tell me the specifics of why they’re off today, because I deserve to know”.
Automatic email replies. The IS&T Knowledge Base (KB) details how to set up automatic replies for your MIT email through the Exchange service or on Outlook. Both allow you to set the start and end date of the auto-response and to choose if everyone will receive this auto-reply or only those within MIT.
If instead you ask your co-workers to cc or bcc on replies then you will know which have been dealt with. (I think for internal mails it’s more reasonable to ask that if the original person contacts someone else, they cc you so you know who is dealing – and in smaller organisations where people know you personally you could also send a mail round the day before you leave to say you’re going to be out and to ask that any enquiries are directed to [name]in your absence, to try to avoid them coming into your inbox in the first place.
Try this out with your colleagues or share it with colleagues/clients headed off on a vacation to send them off in style:
While a holiday is a great chance to disconnect and relax, you have a lot to take care of before taking a break. One of these things is setting up an auto-response system that sends out automated messages to everybody trying to call and message you when you are on leave. A thoughtful out of office message lets people know you cannot respond because you are on a holiday.