I’m guessing that this comment was gratuitously cruel on purpose just for the lulz, but I’ll give it a serious response anyway:
One of my favorite OOO messages I ever received was from a customer who was a barrister or soliciter (not sure the right term for an English lawyer). It said he would be unavailable because he is “on trial.”
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Scared of offending a coworker who may or may not celebrate the holidays? Worry not — I’ve got the perfect email for you. If this OOO message does anything particularly well, it's that it respects the differing views, religions, traditions, and opinions of your coworkers — while amusing so many others.
4. Respond to Urgent Emails Only. If you’re taking a few days off and want to respond only to urgent emails, this template would be a great fit. Hi (specify the Name field id),
Set a minimum delay for auto-responses. For example, if you set a minimum delay of 1, the eDesk will send the OOO template 1 minute after receiving the customer’s message. If you don’t set a minimum delay, eDesk will auto-respond immediately upon receipt of a message.
We are having a temporary office move soon, and our head of facilities was delighted he didn’t need to find data ports for the phones as well as the PCs ;)
I saw a version of this on IG that was an old school (paper) OOO from an associate pastor. It has a line like “if this is an emergency and you must speak to someone, Jesus is always available on the mainline.” Too funny.
Hello, you have reached [Company Name]. To continue in English, press 1, for Spanish, press 2. (Wait for customer to enter an option.) You’ve reached the main menu. To reach a staff member by name, please press 1. For sales inquiries, press 2. For technical support, press 3. To place a purchase order, press 4. For accounting, press 5. To find a store location near you, please press 6. Press 0 to speak with a representative. 4. Product-Focused
Ta-da, you are done! You are one step closer to your vacation. Remember, just because you are away, it doesn’t mean you cannot make someone’s day with a funky OOO email!
I had a manager who did exactly that for his paternity leave. I was floored, because I never thought it was an option. His attitude was that if it was important enough, the person would send it again.
Education Details: Here's an example (and here are 7 more out-of-office templates, too!) Hi there, I am OOO on PTO from Friday, December 1 - Tuesday, December 10 without access to email or voicemail. If this is urgent, please contact [NAME], otherwise I will respond to messages when I return.
There’s a department at my workplace where this is common practice too. My old department worked with clients in similar ways, and I was half expecting we’d also be required to do it, but luckily that never happened. Further proof that, at this (generally progressive, flexible-working) company, your actual work-life balance heavily depends who manages you.
We had to do this at my prior position so that agents knew that we were in the office that specific day. Now i dont even use my phone as most internal people call me on Teams.
I love this! I don’t think its annoying at all– its literally sharing the mission of your work.
Agreed, the whole quirky-cute thibg annoys me, but human drives me up the wall. I cant articulate what about it grates me.
But what if you’re only taking off one day? Sometimes, it might seem silly to bother with an out-of-office for such a short amount of time–especially if it’s a day that a lot of other people are taking off (such as a national holiday). If people do need you to get back to them urgently, they’ll think they’re being ignored. (Even if you define “urgently” differently.) And if there’s a chance of an emergency landing in your inbox, it’ll be that much harder for you to unplug because you’ll just keep “checking in.”
To ensure your out-of-office email is thoughtful and useful, we’ve compiled all the important information and three handy (copy-and-paste ready!) out-office-email examples.