It’s important to get the tone and content right because it can make or break your reputation as a company.
When I’m out for a day or longer, I like to schedule my out of office message to run all the way up until the start time of my day when I return, since we have people who start emailing three hours or earlier before I even get to my desk. If it’s a Monday and I’ve been out for two weeks and they’re emailing me at 6:30am my time, I want people to know that I’ve been out and will be wading through my inbox and might not answer them right away at 10:01 their time like I typically would.
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Dude, my brain is not friends with my ears. It’s not psychological, my brain’s just less reliable than Siri at transcribing your voicemail. No one wants me calling them back explaining that I don’t handle the otter scriptorium inks when really they wanted a chocolate teapot.
I once had a coworker who would put up OOOs for absolutely everything, and it irked me to an unreasonable level. Spending the afternoon working with a colleague on a project? OOO. Just returned from vacation and trying to catch up? OOO. A lot of meetings that day? OOO.
Oh shoot. You need something and I’m unavailable today. Here’s the good news: you have options.
Because you can never predict when an emergency will come up, make sure you have someone who can resond to urgent requests. And that person would be your direct manager. But let them know ahead of time so they're not blindsided when they need to respond to something.
(Depending on your email host, the process of setting up your out of office assistant may vary. You can find a guide on how to access your out of office settings in Outlook here.)
But this absence of basic travel cybersecurity is a problem. Email is the number one threat vector for socially engineered attacks. An automatic reply message not only sends the information to designated contacts, but it also bounces back to people who send phishing emails. Threat actors use any details found in OOO messages to craft targeted social engineering messages. Well-targeted messages build trust that threat actors take advantage of.
I accidentally left my slightly-more-than-professionally-testy “I am out of the office due to a lapse in government funding” voicemail greeting up for a couple months after funding was restored, oops.
This is [NAME’s] bot. [NAME] is indisposed and unable to respond to your email. I’m replying to let you know that she will return to her desk on [DATE]. It is her intent to attend to your request promptly at that time. Meanwhile, [NAME] leaves you with the following message.Please ponder its significance: “I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.” — [NAME]
I am currently out of office on annual leave. I’ll get back to you straight away when I return on [end date]. If it’s urgent you can contact [contact’s name] on (contact’s email).
12) The email server is unable to verify your server connection. Your message has not been delivered. Please restart your computer and try sending again.
"Hello, you've reached [name] at [company]. I'm unable to come to the phone right now. Leave your name and number, and I'll return your call as soon as I'm free. Thank you."
Thank you for your email. I’m out of the office and into the cookies and eggnog right now. I’m celebrating the holidays with my loved ones and will not be checking my email until [return date].
The root of that question, as pointed out in this New York Times article, is that taking vacation can be a bit emotionally conflicting.
Hot www.ionos.com https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/e-mail/technical-matters/perfect-out-of-office-message-examples-and-templates/
Do you know what we’re doing too much of? We’re working too much, and we think too seriously about ourselves while doing it. That’s why including a joke or something fun in your out of office message could be so powerful.