Was required to do this at my last job and our script was to say “I’m working from home today. If you need to reach me urgently, call me at (personal/home/cell number).”
Think about whether you want to leave a forwarding email, which is helpful for dealing with any loose ends you forgot about, in the excitement of leaving.
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Is it possible to turn off the “reply “urgent”” message so they can break through the DND?
That said, be careful with messages that are this curt. Make sure you’re familiar enough with your audience — and your boss, for that matter — to know that this sort of out-of-office message will be met with a snicker, and not with annoyance.
But I’ve also seen this tactic used for a week’s vacation, which seems… aggressive.
The auto-reply only replies ONCE to each email account, the first time they send. If someone sends you multiple messages, they will not get multiple replies back. This is a useful feature because it prevents your account from flooding a mailing list with replies or from filling your email inbox with automatic rejections from "do not reply" accounts.
So many people emailed Ryan that Aviation Gin's servers crashed. Here's his July 2018 out of office message:
It doesn’t work when a group text is sent, is their a workaround for that situation?
One of the only reasons I get voicemails is because our system is set up to send new voicemail messages to your email as an attached file. Now if only it would send the voicemail as a transcript, I’d be set. I don’t mind returning calls, but listening to voicemails is obnoxious, especially because people are really bad at leaving voice messages.
Voicemail is also horrible for non-native speakers. I’m reasonably fluent in German but have to listen to voicemails at least 3 times to get everything. Why people can’t just type a text message is beyond me.
When one of my colleagues is out of the office, he doesn't mess around. In fact, he's turned his auto-responses into a running series of commentary from fictional cartoon character Troy McClure.
Regardless of my general health and hygiene over the silly season, I’ll be back in the office on January 2. 15. “Thank you for your consideration during this festive or not-festive time.”
Feel free to share some examples of auto-reply messages that you have used or such that you’ve received. Include those in the comments below, and we can have a chat.
Seconded, with one exception: I got one once from a distant coworker which said “I have broken my arm in a kitten-related fall and will be out for (…)”. Everyone else uses boilerplate language so that one definitely stood out, but I thought it was the right level of mildly amusing.
I go with “offline” or “away” (away…to my couch). I like closing the door, though!
I deal with this all day. I feel like some property management companies make their managers announce when they’re going to use the bathroom via auto-reply.
I will be out of the office starting (Starting Date) through (End Date) returning(Date of Return). 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. What is the best out of office message?