Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker, productivity strategist, and founder of Productivityist. He is the author of The Front Nine: How to Start the Year You Want Anytime You Want, The Productivityist Playbook, and TimeCrafting: A Better Way to Get the Right Things Done, coming soon from Mango Publishing.
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An ex-Apple PR, Karen's career highlights include interviewing Apple's Steve Wozniak and discussing Steve Jobs’ legacy on the BBC. Her focus is Mac, but she lives and breathes Apple. Recent stories by Karen Haslam: How to delete cache on a Mac How to update iOS on your iPhone Apple releases important security updates to stop spyware About Macworld Contact Site Map Information for Advertisers Licensing & Eprints Privacy Policy Terms & Conditions Cookies Follow Macworld on Twitter Follow Macworld on Facebook
My pet peeve is OOOs for the afternoon/an appointment when the person who set it up is NOT good at responding to emails in a timely fashion. If someone usually requires multiple reminders and follow up emails for me to get a reply to an email after 2 weeks, I don’t really need a notification that their responses will be delayed an hour until they get back from the doctor. It makes me think “who are you responding to that quickly, and why can’t you reply to me that fast??”
You Need A Better Out Of Office MessageWe don't need professional politeness. We need honesty.
Happy holidays! [Your Name] Whether you prefer to stick with something simple or have a little fun with your holiday out-of-office message, it’s important that you always make sure to at least include the basics: your return date and an alternative contact people can reach out to …
Hi there, Thanks for your email. I am out of the office right now and will not return until [MM/DD]. Fortunately for you, our resources never take time off and we’ve got this awesome ebook / whitepaper / infographic on [TITLE] that I think you would enjoy. I’ll get back to you as soon as I get back into the office. Best.
During the holidays, you may also want to send holiday greetings to colleagues who are on the same team as you. In this situation, your message can be more casual and include inside jokes, depending on how close you are to your coworkers. Take a look at these holiday messages to colleagues.
I’ll add my shout out to MS and Outlook for not only being able to schedule OoO auto replies, but for having internal and external facing options.
Honestly, what drives me crazy is after someone has emailed me, gets the out of office, then *does* email someone else instead of waiting for me to get back. Yet said someone doesn’t email me back to say “see you’re out, person X got it taken care of, you can disregard my email”. So then I waste time seeing the initial request and following up. Has anyone found a good wording / other solution to know if the request was completed by someone else?
It’s so much easier for everyone to have an OoO that says “I’m gone- please contact PaperClipSortingTeam ‘at’ spacelyspacesprockets for help while I’m out.
Visuals always work whether used in messages or elsewhere. In fact, communications that include images produce 650% higher engagement than text-only messages.
However, I will be taking periodic breaks from binge-watching everything I’ve missed to check my email [once per day/every evening/occasionally] while I’m away.
Thank you for your email. I’ll be offline through mid-January without access to email. In the interim, please contact Maya Schwartz, a sales and marketing manager here, at [email protected].
Yeah, I do think some are pretty funny (eg tan lines) and some are not so terrible, but I honestly think she took them incredibly seriously and wasn’t trying to make her colleagues laugh as much as just ….. put out an air of “look how personable and authentic I am”. She also lamented that other people’s OOOs were “rigid” and why couldn’t people have fun?! Which again, sounds not so bad but was someone who would regularly ask prying inappropriate personal questions, so it came across less like “let’s loosen up” and more like “why won’t people tell me the specifics of why they’re off today, because I deserve to know”.
Thanks so much for your email. I took today off to [rest/relax/travel/spend time with family]. In an effort to come back fully recharged, I won’t be spending today with my phone attached to my hand. (Scary, I know.) Don’t worry, though, because I will be checking in every so often and responding to anything urgent.
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.