If I got an OoO just to tell me to have a good day, I would find that person and throw water on their computer. They’re obviously not qualified to operate one.
My grandboss used to put in his OOO: ‘I’m out of the office. If you need x or y, contact Andy or Jane. They know stuff.
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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].
Hahaha. This sounds like somebody thought the phrase “at X’s earliest convenience” sounded vaguely businessy and professional, but didn’t realize the pronoun is always supposed to be “your”. It’s never “my”, for the reason you mentioned.
I hope you will be celebrating the season soon. However, if your email is time-sensitive, please contact [Alternate Name] at [alternate email] and one of our busy elves will be happy to help.
I would be SUPER annoyed to get this! I agree it seems condescending and it’s just too long.
Thank you for your correspondence. I am currently away from my computer and may be delayed in my response.
I follow this TikTok account and she has a TON of these. I think it’s a culture thing. It would be inappropriate in many places but clearly it isn’t there.
If you want to add a humorous spin to your vacation responder email, here’s a great idea:
Careful. Holiday revelry and debauchery ahead. Proceed with caution (if you dare).
Oh heavens no. All I ask of an out of office is that it tells me when the person will be back (if known) and who I can contact in the interim.
My workplace is super strict about out of office replies. We have 3 scripts we are allowed to use; and we are only allowed to change our name, job title, and return to office date. If you veer off script, management will have IT turn off your out of office as it does not comply with their standards. They are also super strict with messages on our voicemails, again with the option of using 2 scripts and changing your name, job title, and return to office date.
It’s my favorite time of year, which means I’m currently out of the office lounging on a Carribean beach, sipping on mojitos, and attempting to achieve the tan I’ve been waiting all year long for.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re going to be out of the office for a few days, or a few months – if you’re going on vacation, it’s critical to remember to set up your out-of-office autoresponder.
In all seriousness, you've probably ended up here because you were looking for some inspiration on your out of office message. You saw that they can range from funny to outright sales-y to a serious teaching moment. There's a few other things we want to make sure you don't leave out of your next out of office reply. Here's our three rules for scratching out that next OOO:
Even if I do have access to my email while I’m vacation, I typically do “I’m out of office with no access to email or voicemail until (date). For anything requiring immediate attention please contact (boss).” If I happen to check my email I can still forward the important ones, but otherwise hopefully people get the message that I will not be responding.
At my old job we had a short script for our voice mail messages including whether we were in the office or out of the office. We were specifically told not to say why we were out of the office for personal privacy and protection reasons. However, an exception was soon made–for jury duty. Callers were getting freaked out when they got the message “I’m out of the office and don’t know when I will return.” They would be worried about the person they were calling and worried about whether or not they would be able to get the info they needed. So if on jury duty we would say, “I’m out of the office on jury duty and don’t know when I will return.”