But interestingly enough, exboss never set her out of office emails when she was out of the office or teleworking. Curious how the rules never applied to her. So glad to get away from her. This isn’t even the tip of the Toxic Boss Iceberg that was her. You are unavailable until x date, and I’ll get back to you after that date. Done. (sorry, didn’t think about email OOO stuff. Hey, it’s the 90’s here at my work place.)
I could see the benefit if someone needed to ask something before they left. It seems courteous?
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There’s nothing awful or offensive about this message, but it’s also not very good. Yes, it provides the courtesy of letting the sender nominally know that you’re going to be slower than usual to respond. That’s nice. The problem is in this bit: “may be slow to respond to email.” Another popular variation: “might be slower than usual to respond.”
Thank you for your message. I am out of the office from May 1-6 with limited email access. If you need immediate assistance, please contact my assistant editor, Alex Jordan, at [email protected] or 555-432-6100. Otherwise, I will respond to messages upon my return.
A. No. All of the restaurants, including Starbucks and other eateries in Thompson Student Union, will be closed during winter break. They will reopen the second week of January.
My absolute favorite was the one that literally said “hodilay”. Typo included, capitalization, or any other words, not.
“When I got there and found out the bungee was 134 feet high I got terrible cold feet, but I felt that since I wrote it, I had to do it. So I did. It was terrifying and indeed a lesson on making bold claims in a public way!”
I feel for the people who have to cover others’ out-of-office for a few hours or a day, just as much as I feel for those who have to arrange cover whenever they’re out for a meeting. If the purpose is showing demanding clients that they can get a quick response to their issues at any time, then…won’t talking to someone who doesn’t have any context about their business piss them off even more? It all feels like unnecessary stress to put on people.
[Company name] office is closed today for the [holiday name] and will reopenam [date]. [Company name] Online and our website is available throughout.
Dear Customer, Our office is closed and you can expect to hear back from me by [date]. Have a great holiday! Regards [Name/signature]
Or, in the case of Samarah Miel, owner of Amarillo Travel Network, her out of office message is a fabulous mix of sales/bonding with others in the industry/promoting her expertise to clients. Bonus points for including a video!
Oh man, I mostly loved my European colleagues, but the “we were gone for a month, why haven’t you done more?” made me so, so stabby. That or the whole “hey, you really need to work harder to get this done by June 25th because none of us are going to be around to take care of our part by July 1.” So, I’m working 65 hour weeks for a month so you don’t have to spend 8 hours of your vacation working? Sounds fair.
> When I get an answer from someone who reads his e-mails on vacation I’m pleasantly surprised.
On behalf of all people who have trouble typing on the miniature keyboards, my apologies :)
The eternally mind-blowing story of the company-wide email, OoO messages, and reply-all autoresponders that took out a 30,000 employee university email server one summer, comes to mind here…
Optionally, set a date range for your automatic replies. This will turn off automatic replies at the date and time you enter for the end time. Otherwise, you'll need to turn off automatic replies manually.
I’ll reply to your message promptly when I return. But, if you require immediate assistance, please send an email to [contact name] at [contact email] in my absence.