And it's worth pointing out—in case, like me, you missed it because you were awed by her approach to her parental OOO—the response is completely in sync with the New York Times' culture/brand. (You can find her OOO with live links here.)
And just like that, you covered the essentials. You don’t always need to have a Shakespeare-like auto-responder. If you, however, prefer a little creativity, continue reading- it gets more interesting.
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Sample out-of-office email message: “Thank you for your message. The University of Toledo is closed for winter break. If your message requires a response, I will reply after New Year's Day during normal business hours. Happy holidays!”
Some of my coworkers have started putting “Thank you for your email” at the beginning of their out of office replies. Management loves it, but I think it’s too ingratiating and I cringe when I read it. These are junior-level staffers, so maybe it makes sense in that context? Anyway, I refuse to put that in my out of office messages.
I know a lot of people who never vacation for more than a few days because the email backlog becomes incredibly stressful upon their return; this is one way to meaningfully combat that which is somewhat in the employee’s control.
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Interesting! I’d be unpleasantly surprised and tempted to scold them for not taking a proper break.
You should avoid technical jargons Avoid complex vocabulary that creates confusion Maintain a friendly tone
Maybe you’re still available on email, but your location means there might be a little bit of an issue with time differences. This response is clever and a little bit geeky!
Please contact (Contact Person with email and phone) if you need immediate assistance.
Image Source: https://onepoint21jigawatts.tumblr.com/post/61059236581/day-1-favorite-movie-field-of-dreams-1989
You should use your out of office email whenever you’re going to be away from the office – whether it’s for a day, a week, or even longer.
I might sound nitpicky but the language is important. “Might” or “may be” or “slower than usual” are vague and don’t offer the sender all that much information about when you’re really going to respond to them. Worse, they do a horrible job of protecting the time of the email receiver who, as the responder notes, is not in the office! Such a responder implies that, not only will the vacationer reply to the email, but they may not even miss a beat. They may be slow to respond, but they also might not.
“You have reached [Sandy and Bill’s] voice mail. Please leave your message after the beep so we can call you back if we want to.”
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I am in [COUNTRY] [DATE] to [DATE] so email replies may be tardy due to the curvature of the earth and the sun. Thank you.
The only thing that isn’t boilerplate in mine is the inclusion of “But what if I have a word emergency?” before the who to contact stuff. I removed it at one point and people asked me to put it back in because it made them smile. And yep, we’re writers so the only emergencies we deal with are ones related to words.