However, if you do choose to do this, make sure you actually follow through and do the thing you’re bragging about, unlike this New York Times reader who was just a bit too bold.
For me, life isn’t just about having my brain cryogenically frozen so I can be revived two hundred years after the apocalypse to dance with the chosen few along the gilded path to Valhalla.
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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!”
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.
I include my boss because I have different backups for five or six different parts of my job, and my boss is more likely to know the nuances of which one is the appropriate contact than the person sending the email, so it’s more likely to get to the right person if she redirects than if the emailer tries to guess which one of the six contacts I listed is the one who can solve their problem. (My specialty is the “other things as requested” section of my job description; I’m sort of a jack of all trades around here. :) )
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You don’t have to stop using OOO messages. Instead, they need to be used wisely. It’s okay to suggest an alternate contact while you are unavailable or add a date when you will be back in action. Just skip the details about why you set up the out of office message. No one needs to know that your son is getting married in Paris. Remove any personal details in that message, including personal cell phone numbers or an alternate email where you can temporarily be reached.
I do find the above quite amusing, but it would never fly at my place of work! lol!
A simple, short and sweet ‘Hi, we’re closing’ is often enough for people to take note. 4. Include the office closing dates in your Newsletter. Simply add a short one-liner to your November & December newsletter to reinforce your closure message. 5. If you send Christmas cards to your network include a little office closing notice. Filter Type All Time Past 24 Hours Past Week Past month Brand Listing› Evernote› Capital One› Iphone› Homelessness› Popcornflix› Tabasco Restaurant 1868› Joseph Newhouse› Github› Logitech› Facetime› Benevolent And Protective Order Of Elks› Freedom Bank Of Southern Missouri› Wyzant› Nissan› Instacart› Country CodeBrowse All Brands >> Frequently Asked QuestionsHow to create an office closed for holiday message?
To my mind, it’s just a really bad idea to mass delete stuff that comes in while you’re out. You never know if those emails contain important (though non-actionable) information that you’ll need. You really can’t expect people to resend information like that once you’re back, especially if you were cc’d on something.
Long Vacation Message. If you’re going to be on vacation for a week or two, then it’s essential you set up your vacation email. If you miss the odd day, the world won’t implode, but if people don’t know you’re away for a few weeks and they don’t know exactly when you’ll be back, or who they can contact in your place, you’re going to have some unhappy clients or customers.
“Through this mail, I send holiday greetings for the Symantec office and the employees of the office for a superb holiday season. I wish you all have much fun filled moments and adventures during the holiday period. Have a happy holiday.”
“The world is serious enough as it is - people need, and usually appreciate, an unexpected moment of levity in their day,” he says, when quizzed about how recipients might respond to such an OOO. He also confides that he himself has dispensed with auto responses altogether – though not for idealistic reasons. “The last time I tried to set one up, I botched it so badly that somehow it resent every single email in my outbox from the previous year - client emails, firing notices, literally thousands of emails.”
Writing an effective out-of-office message is a key part of running any business. Although it may seem so simple, an incomplete or unclear out-of-office message will cause problems before you leave as well as when you return.
Student emails at 3am Saturday morning, then is sends an email Sunday night, miffed you didn’t reply.
Should the matter be important, please contact Jim Ross ([email protected]) in my absence. Kind regards.
Amanda works at HubSpot, and she came with a unique auto respondent that asked her contacts to guess where she is. To give background, she flew down to Boston to attend a Red Sox training game in the spring with her father. She chose to ask her contacts whether where they think she might be, and also this played some wonderful use of litotes here: