Giving the option to contact an email address containing "interruptyourvacation" provides two things — 1) A dose of humor, and 2) discouragement from actually doing what the name suggests. Plus, he prefaces it with a request for empathy, by explaining that he promised quality time to his family.
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.
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My coworker tends to set his OOO for people to contact me, but he never bothers to tell me he’s going to be out of town and people may be contacting me. I’ll find out when I happen to email him and get the response. Not a huge deal, but the heads up would be nice! What if I was also on vacation?
Such emails are crucial, especially when you have long-lasting relationships with customers that need a prompt response. It would be very unprofessional to leave without explaining why you aren’t answering. It’s like if you are having a conversation with someone, you decide to just take off without saying goodbye, while they went to the bathroom. Rude!
If the person keeps you on the message thread in which they then contact someone else (ideally, the person you stated in your out of office message as the one who’s handling urgent issues in your absence), you are literally kept in the loop and can see for yourself that all was handled when you get back. Of course, this works even better if you check the most recent items in your inbox first when you get back.
“Thank you for your message. I am out of the office today with no access to phone. I will be back on April 5. In case you need any immediate help, you can reach [person] at [phone number].”
I have literally never seen an OOO that wasn’t “I will be out of the office until DATE/further notice. Please contact X or Y at EMAIL/PHONE if you need assistance.” This is fascinating stuff.
For immediate assistance, please contact me on my cell phone at 0912345678 or [email protected].
My boss requires us to put a nightly OOO message up, and I HATE it. I pushed back on it for months at first, because people know and understand that the reason no one is responding at 8pm is because the business is closed (or at least, they should understand that…). It wasn’t worth the fight, my boss thinks it’s so important, so I caved and just turn on the message every night. I think it makes us look immature and like we don’t understand business norms, but it’s not the hill I’m willing to die on.
A professional voicemail greeting is a vital component of your communication strategy. It can increase engagement with your clients, create rapport and leave a good first impression when you're currently not available to pick up the phone. Knowing the perfect words to include in your professional voicemail recording increases the chances of
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I once emailed a colleague in our main office and got an OOO reply that said just: “I am currently out of the office. Please press 0 to reach the operator for assistance”
Figured it out: only works when set in driving mode, and driving mode works if you are actually driving or not 🙂 Until then, this will work until they come up with a better solution. Thank you!!
Education Details: Out of office holiday template. If you’re closing for a few days (or longer) for the holidays, let your clients know. Your out of office holiday auto reply email should be informative and wish your clients all the best during the holiday season. Happy holidays from all of us at …
I was once horrified as an HR person, and amused as a normal person, by an OOO from an employee who had left the company. They had booked vacation for their last week or so, and while I can’t remember the exact text, it said that they were no longer with the company and they were happy to leave and never come back. I think “to this hellhole” was only implied.
The big issue I have with the example in the post is that not only is it unnecessarily long-winded, but you have to listen through all the chattiness to get to the “here’s who to contact in a real emergency” part. The tone does rub me wrong, but I’m willing to roll with that as a personality/company culture thing.