I’ve started using one that’s short/sweet but still has a little bit of JAZZ. I can’t take credit for it – I saw it on Twitter a few years ago. It’s been received well both inside and outside of my organization. Here it is. If it speaks to you, please yoink it and use it as you wish:
Agreed. Every time you are in a meeting is overkill. For some people they are never not in meetings.
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I still will get urgent messages from coworkers with multiple follow-ups during my OOO period. Then an angry call or email when I return that the response time was too long. When I check with Jane about the status she says she was never contacted about the issue. I always push back “Why didn’t you contact Jane?” but I think a lot of people in my organization like to shift blame when they are behind on their deadlines. If it was really so urgent, why did you wait a week just to get an answer from me?
Amanda works at HubSpot, and she came with a unique auto respondent that asked her contacts to guess where she is. To give background, she flew down to Boston to attend a Red Sox training game in the spring with her father. She chose to ask her contacts whether where they think she might be, and also this played some wonderful use of litotes here:
Unless you work in an industry well known for grownups being good at smart and bad at practical. Then, you do.
Have you ever called a company’s support line just to be confronted with an unsympathetic and confusing attendant menu? Or tried to reach a representative, but pressing the “0” key does nothing?
If you’re using Gmail, you’ll find settings for out of office messages by clicking the cog icon on the main screen:
I should note that our voicemail system has a pretty straightforward feature to put an end date on an out-of-office voicemail message. I am baffled why this person does not use the feature.
Hi, Happy holidays, and thanks for your email! I’m taking a few days off to spend time with my family and friends so I won’t be answering emails as quickly as usual.
I’m here to talk to you about someone you know. Catalina Wong is out of office until September 27. She wanted me to let you know that she’ll get back to you after her return.
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I would like to think that a professional translator would think to provide their out-of-office message in all languages that they translate. If anybody here is one, is that standard operating procedure?
Even if I do have access to my email while I’m vacation, I typically do “I’m out of office with no access to email or voicemail until (date). For anything requiring immediate attention please contact (boss).” If I happen to check my email I can still forward the important ones, but otherwise hopefully people get the message that I will not be responding.
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These work voicemail greetings are for the work phone that you and only you use. They’re highly effective because they help you establish a relationship straight from the voicemail. Or they help you share an important update in a simple, straightforward way.
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Thank you for your email. I will be out of the office from *date* to *date* and will have limited access to email / will not have access to email. If you require immediate assistance, please contact *Name* at *email*. I will do my best to respond promptly to your email upon my return.