According to The Washington Post’s self-reported survey of more than 1,000 white-collar workers, “we spend an average of 4.1 hours checking our work email each day.” That’s over 1,000 hours each year. The holidays are the perfect time to temporarily break up with your email inbox for a digital detox. Before you stress about crafting the perfect out of the office message, check out our sample templates. From professionally festive to holiday humor, we know you’ll be ready to copy, paste, and fully embrace the holiday season.
I’ve seen similar things with OOO messages where people would update them practically daily. “I’ll be away from my desk from 9-2 with intermittent emails and then on a call from 3:-3:45” and ….dude. We don’t need that much detail every day.
.
It’s Christmas, what are you doing emailing me? I’m extremely busy watching Home Alone, Die Hard, and the 1994 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Christmas Special on repeat until the new year. I might stop for food and toilet breaks, I also might now. Regardless of my general health and hygiene over the silly season, I’ll be back in office on January 2nd. Catch ya then, don’t forget to buy a pepperoni pizza for Splinter. (Source: Futureofworking.com)
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).
It is entirely possible to enjoy a podcast and hate voicemail, nothing about issues with human voices.
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 …
“I’m offline and have sporadic access to email until X date. For urgent matters contact Colleagues A and B. For true work related emergencies you can call me at Cell Number”
So, not the literal first second I’m back at my desk. But as soon as I can, depending on where you land once I’ve taken a look at everything and set some priorities.
I’ll be on maternity leave from [DATE] until [DATE]. For general inquiries about [DEPARTMENT/ROLE], please email [CONTACT NAME]. If this isn’t time sensitive, feel free to resend this email in [MONTH] once I’m regularly checking emails again. All the best.
3. 3 The Bedford Falls. Season’s Greetings! I’m currently curled up on the couch with fuzzy slippers on my feet, a blanket across my lap, and a mug of cocoa in my hand.
It definitely sounds like something my boss would write and I laughed at it. In our work, everyone thinks that they’re a special emergency all the time. Stopping to think “if I don’t have this in the next two days what will the actual consequences be” is a thing that should happen more but doesn’t.
She may want to talk to her IT folks to see if they can help her switch this around.
ContentsHow to Set Up an Out of Office Reply in the Outlook Desktop AppHow to Set Up Out of Office Replies in the Microsoft Outlook Web Version
Not an out of office, but I had a sign I used to put on my closed door whenever I was head down on something and didn’t want to be disturbed:
Giving the option to contact an email address containing "interruptyourvacation" provides two things — 1) A dose of humor, and 2) discouragement from actually doing what the name suggests. Plus, he prefaces it with a request for empathy, by explaining that he promised quality time to his family.
That’s weird. I’m technically teleworking almost all the time (our office doesn’t really have the space to fit us all in anyway) and I’m next to my computer nearly the whole day…
6. "Hi, this is [your name]. I'm either on a call or away from my desk. Please leave your name, number, and a brief message and I'll get back to you. Thank you."