Thank you for your email. I’m currently out of the office until [date] to celebrate the holiday with my loved ones—without my phone in front of my face.
It was just this colleague – it (thankfully) wasn’t the culture of the office, and I never saw anyone else abuse the OOO like this.
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Naturally, she had to take the day off — and couldn’t let folks know with any old generic auto-response. Instead, she made a guessing game of it in her out-of-office email, which you can use for yourself, below.
I love this and want to start using it. I am assuming it’s pronounced “hood-a-lay” and that said hodilay has already begun when the OOO message was written!
Holiday / Vacation Message Examples, Script Ideas - Business: It is often used for Christmas/New Year and Easter. But it can also be used for normal holidays or vacation periods. 1.) Welcome to John Doe. Our telephone hotline is not occupied over the holidays.
Usually, you have the option ready, and all you have to do is go to your email settings. Once you are there, you will see something like Automatic Replies, or even Out of office AutoReply, as it is with Gmail:
Personally, I’d think it’s funny to receive an OOO like was in the video, at least the first time. It wouldn’t fly AT ALL at my company, but it’s at least interesting. All I really want to see is how long you’re out, and who I need to contact instead.
We used to do this at my old job in addition to OOO messages. I found it useful to know in advance how long people were going to be gone. There’s nothing more annoying than needing something urgently from the one person who can help and then getting an auto-response saying they’re out for the next 2 weeks.
But to set a vacation mode on the iPhone, it is better to select manually. This will give you more control to change the mode at any time.
Although out of office emails are usually used when a person’s on holiday, they can also be used in a number of other circumstances.
It’s your last day before the vacation starts, you are rushing through your to-do list and suddenly you realize- I need to write an OOO email!
Does your company publish blogs or offer downloadable ebooks, reports, or case studies? If so, add a P.S. to the end of your vacation message linking your readers to some content they can learn from or engage with.
I know you’re just blowing off steam, but the problem is that you’re working 65 hour weeks, not that they get proper time off! If labour laws were fair everywhere we could all have a proper uninterrupted rest.
I much prefer a team calendar that I can check rather than loads of Free invitations at the top of my calendar taking up space. My previous team did the former and I tried to get my current team to change to it but it didn’t stick unfortunately.
I worked for a federal contractor back during the Great Recession when government offices were shut down/working with a skeleton crew. I still remember getting OOOs from almost every email address in the agency we worked at explaining they were on furlough & to contact one specific person if the issue was urgent. We all assumed this poor person was hiding under her desk, rocking back & forth, with her head in her hands.
Before I implemented this system, I got *way* too many calls asking if so-and-so was out of the office that day when an OOO tells them that Bob will be back in three hours and to call Sue in the interim. The OOOs have reduced status check calls to practically zero, and the OOO preview pops up in our system as soon someone’s email is entered.
There are multiple ways to craft your out-of-office message, but there are a couple of standard best practices to follow that will ensure you don’t come back to angry or confused customers, coworkers, or vendors.