Over time, I began to suspect that those who might be telling the truth (of which I suspected there were very few), would mention their relationship to the person and possibly the cause, for example “My grandmother just passed away after surgery.” The ones who left it wide open (“someone close has recently died”) led me to imagine that it could be a random person in their city that they read about in the news, their goldfish, or perhaps a distant relative who had passed away in the previous few years.
Seriously, literally, anything but a voicemail. I’d take “sharpie on a dirty napkin delivered by carrier pigeon to my island vacation” over voicemails. I can’t flag voicemails for later. And also, we have this cool new feature where you can see missed calls. I do not need a voicemail just saying “Hey its Bob, call me back.”
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The OOO definitely has those two pieces. But it could be 1 of 4 people who handle things when I’m out (depending on what it is) and they may not know at all that the requestor had reached out to me first / forget to cc me. So, I’d see this as me adding to my OOO “if you contact person X, please keep me cc’ed on the message you send to person x”?
I hate to break it to you, but I’m on annual leave until [end date] and will have limited access to my emails until then.
Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged $5.99 for the first ten words and $1.99 for each additional word in your message. This message is automated because until [DATE] because I’m moving to [LOCATION]. That’s right. A cross country road trip from [CITY] to [CITY]. I’ll get back to you when we pull into the driveway.
There’s nothing awful or offensive about this message, but it’s also not very good. Yes, it provides the courtesy of letting the sender nominally know that you’re going to be slower than usual to respond. That’s nice. The problem is in this bit: “may be slow to respond to email.” Another popular variation: “might be slower than usual to respond.”
It’s wise to check they aren’t though. A colleague once had an out of office from an academic that simply said ‘on fieldwork’. Just those two words.
I have nothing against part-time staff. But, if they only work until 4 PM until 5 PM, then the OOTO replies aren’t as helpful. If we had staff that only worked on certain days, then knowing that it may be more than one business day before a reply would be useful.
If you want your message to be formal, avoid using contracted forms such as I’m and I’ll as well as informal or casual language. It’s also a good idea to start your message with an expression of thanks like: If your audience isn’t from your work environment, you could take a risk with something more fun and personalised:
I’ll also admit to not changing my voicemail for OoO in the past 3 or 4 years. I rarely get calls anymore it’s just not worth it… I figure if they don’t reach me by phone they’ve already emailed me or will email me after the voicemail.
Any correspondence (email or phone calls) sent my way will be responded to within 2–3 days of my return.
I don’t need some fancy, forensic gin-juggler to tell me why I like something. Just keep it simple. And real happiness is about simplicity.
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?
February 2018January 2018December 2017October 2017July 2017May 2017April 2017March 2017February 2017January 2017December 2016November 2016October 2016September 2016July 2016June 2016April 2016February 2016November 2015October 2015September 2015July 2015June 2015May 2015April 2015March 2015January 2015October 2014April 2014March 2014February 2014January 2014November 2013October 2013
See, if it’s a long period of leave and there’s an alternate contact provided, this is just… the sensible thing that should happen?
Unfortunately I didn’t save it, but I once received of office reply that included a synopsis of the “comedic novel” they were working on during their time off.
I also kinda want to sit here with popcorn and read all the shenanigans that are about to roll in.