Way too long, but so hilarious. I don’t get condescending at all. I’m drooling while imagining I had this on my work phone when everyone thought their requests were life or death. Actually, I wanted my message to say, “I realize you think your request is vitally important, but I’d like to reassure you: I worked in a hospital years ago, and good news! It’s really not.”
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But let’s talk out-of-office messages: overshares, excessive detail, the ones that self-aggrandize (I once had a coworker whose auto-replies often said he’d be in late because he “pulled an all-nighter” on various work projects, etc.), the ones that never get turned off, people who don’t use them at all, and other pet peeves.
I think there must have been a discussion about this here in December, because when I recently came to set my OoO recently there was some previous wording along the lines of “I will be spending time with my family during the festive season and will not be checking my email until (date)”. I’m annoyed with myself for deleting it without saving it somewhere, because it was much better worded than that and I’d like to be able to use it again!
Is your email urgent? If so, you should probably call [Name] at [phone number], and they will assist you. They aren’t in the sunshine – they’re still at work.
What we need in our work communication is not more professional politeness or less formal, chat-based messaging applications like Slack. We need honesty. The problem is that we’ve conditioned ourselves to see honesty as self-indulgent or disrespectful. I’d argue the opposite is true. Honesty, even if it’s a bit more inconvenient for all parties in the moment, pays dividends later. It builds trust. When my partner Anne Helen Petersen and I were interviewing people for our forthcoming book on remote work, a frequent lament from both middle managers and workers was that they didn’t feel like they knew how to succeed in their jobs; that they were guessing what their superiors and coworkers wanted and, even when they asked, they didn’t quite trust the responses they got back.
Hollywood star turned gin distiller Ryan Reynolds showed last summer how the OOO can become a marketing tool. “Thank you for your email and interest in Aviation American Gin! I’m away from my desk at the moment but will respond the moment they give me a desk,” began his first attempt. A few months later, along came another: “This is only my 2nd OUT OF OFFICE REPLY. From what I’m told, it should be short, sweet and NEVER overly personal or emotional.” After TV host Jimmy Fallon asked him to read one out on The Tonight Show, the resulting influx – around 20,000 emails in a single day – to [email protected] melted the small brand’s servers. Fortunately, it also reportedly piqued the interest of retailers and restaurants, keen to start carrying the tipple.
ImpactImpactThis nonprofit renovates abandoned Baltimore houses—and then sells them at a discount to local residentsImpactThis program is testing what happens when you give cash to people leaving prisonImpactThese Nobel Prize-winning economists explain why direct cash transfers are so vital to fighting poverty
Website: https://infinititelecommunications.com.au/updating-your-phone-system-greetings-voicemail/
If you need immediate assistance during my absence, please contact (Contacts Name) at (Contacts Email Address). Otherwise, I will respond to your emails as soon as possible upon my return.
Readers, what do you like and hate in out-of-offices replies? Any stories of particularly off-key ones?
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We have tested this workaround by placing a sample vacation message on the iPhone DND mode Auto-Reply screen. To check this feature, we manually turned on the iPhone DND mode from iPhone Control Center with the above settings.
Thank you for your message! I'm out of the office from X DATE to Y DATE and will not be checking email. I'll follow up with you as soon as possible upon my return. If you have an urgent request, please contact XX person at YY email address.
My outgoing voicemail message says “Please don’t leave me a voicemail, send me an email instead”
My snarky colleague sure did in his out-of-office message below. We send thank-you letters in response to holiday gifts, so it’s only natural to expect the same gesture in our work inboxes …
If you want to learn how to set up your OOO message with a self-hosted email, you can follow our quick guide called How to Create Email AutoResponder in cPanel.