Also, you need to know your audience if you are going to go eccentric. Alison mentions that this message is fine in their culture, but it wouldn’t npbe appropriate for my somewhat formal field. And even if your workplace in general is casual, you might be contacted by someone outside. (In a tiny provincial courthouse I served in the past, there is a story going around that in the 80s a junior but elderly clerk used to address phone callers as hun and sweetheart and generally speak very informally. Most people thought it was funny, and then the President of Supreme Court called and… he didn’t).
We also had to reply to any emails we received within 4 hours. Even if we didn’t have an answer.
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I am the LW! It’s interesting, having Alison type out the OOO reply comes across less condescending than how it did in video. I’m sure it works for their office but it also says a lot, potentially, about their culture that she’d need to write something out like that in the first place! Usually “I’m OOO from X to X, please contact X for (reason)” should suffice.
Yes! I remember reading here the phrase: the default mode of clever is asshole. Meaning when trying to be clever backfires, you end up just looking like an asshole. I’ve given up the need to get laughs at my clever sense of humor while at work. I really hope that out of office message is for internal emails only, because the risk of this landing badly is too high.
Unfortunately, I will not be able/ delayed in answering your e-mail till 23rd Nov.
Something about it gets my goat up! Like she’s working and emailing me about things she wants me to work on, but her OOO is telling me to buzz off coz she’s too busy to get to my emails. Also she still has it set up and we’ve been in lockdown for over a week. How long does she intend to have her OOO triaging everything and making excuses for delays? We all know there’s a lockdown, that’s why everyone is scrambling for their events to be rescheduled – it just comes across as very self-important at a time where everyone is under stress. No one else in the organisation has this so it seems very bizarre to have an OOO while still working!
Image Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/hilarious-out-of-office-email-auto-replies
Don't leave your sender guessing. Let them know when you'll be out and the date you'll be back in the office — not when you're returning home.
I have no idea how to update my voicemail message and I don’t actually know what it says. I occasionally get voicemails that are automatically forwarded to my email as sound files but I don’t think I have ever had a business related voicemail land there (it is rare that I get calls from outside the company and most people in the company if they can’t reach me on the phone will IM me directly–we use Teams for both phone and messaging).
You don’t need to turn off the “Driving” mode to make outgoing calls. And you can still access emails and messages as usual. The auto-reply will work as long as your phone in driving mode.
Website: https://www.slideshare.net/kirsty_wilson/7-ways-to-annonce-your-holiday-office-closure
If you are reading this, it is because John Whatsisname cannot help you – he has left the company and no longer uses this email address.
For non-urgent inquiries, I will return your message as soon as I get back in the office.
In case of pressing issues that need urgent attention, feel free to reach out to [CO-WORKER NAME]. Give them a call on [PHONE NUMBER] or send a message to [CO-WORKER EMAIL].
Yupp! At this particular place we had a client who could not get a hold of someone. They made a huge stink about it and this became company policy. We also had to change our VM every night. We also had to reply to any emails we received within 4 hours. Even if we didn’t have an answer.
Hello, Happy holidays! Thank you for your email; we are currently closed for the Easter holidays. It won’t be possible to respond to our email as I have limited access to the internet. But once I am back I will respond as quickly as usual. Kind Regards,
Yeah, that’s not enough to stress over. Try coming back to tens of thousands after parental leave.