This holiday out-of-office email is definitely on theme, if not a little passive aggressive. If you're getting emails during the holidays, why not treat everything you receive that season like the present it is, and send a thank you note?
People really just need to know that I’m either definitely not going to reply (annual leave) or might but delayed (all day meetings) plus when I’m back and who to contact if it is urgent.
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Luckily for you, my colleague *Name* generously offered to cover for me. You can reach him/her at *email*.
8. Didn’t get the gift you wanted? Is it possible to sell Christmas gifts after Christmas has ended? As it turns out, it is. You just need to focus on a different audience.
You don’t have to stop using OOO messages. Instead, they need to be used wisely. It’s okay to suggest an alternate contact while you are unavailable or add a date when you will be back in action. Just skip the details about why you set up the out of office message. No one needs to know that your son is getting married in Paris. Remove any personal details in that message, including personal cell phone numbers or an alternate email where you can temporarily be reached.
I suppose I’d rather know that and be able to factor it in to my schedule, irritating as it is, than not know and get caught by the month-long delay.
We have people who do this whenever they are teleworking, regardless of the circumstances. Teleworking is working and by putting OOM’s on, you are signaling that perhaps you are NOT, in fact, working. Stop it!
My old job was like that! It was so, so annoying. I understood requiring us to update our voicemails if we were out of the office that day, but it was just a waste of a few minutes every single morning.
If you're anything like I am, you probably fall into team two. That doesn't leave a lot of time to get creative. But if you plan ahead, you might be able to craft some hilarity.
If you need immediate assistance with [project or department], please contact [name and contact information]. For assistance with [project or department], please contact [name and contact information].
In the top right corner of your Gmail window, click the cog icon. The quick setting panel will appear. From there, click “See all settings.”
It’s kind of a ridiculous OOO anyway since by the time I get it from you, I have already sent my email.
Education Details: The following listing of out of office email messages serve as perfect examples to the type of message you can create. I will be away from [date] until [date]. For urgent matters, you can contact [name]. I will be out of the office from [date] until [date]. If …
Type in a message. You can format the text using the tool bar, or cut and paste text you've formatted, including hyperlinked text.
My OOO messages are always pretty casual, and the last line in the list of “for X, contact Y” is always something like “for chili recipes, contact Z”.
Setting a proper out-of-office email also puts pressure off you when you have limited time to respond to emails outside the office. We will look at a few examples together here:
At my old job we had a short script for our voice mail messages including whether we were in the office or out of the office. We were specifically told not to say why we were out of the office for personal privacy and protection reasons. However, an exception was soon made–for jury duty. Callers were getting freaked out when they got the message “I’m out of the office and don’t know when I will return.” They would be worried about the person they were calling and worried about whether or not they would be able to get the info they needed. So if on jury duty we would say, “I’m out of the office on jury duty and don’t know when I will return.”