Three years ago, my daughter and I went on a 3 week tour of Europe. Below is my OOO. I had a lot of emails – ‘I was told to email you to get your OOO.’ I am out of the office, July 18th – August 6th. I do not plan to read any emails during that time. No need to despair, though! Assistant and Intern (5654, she’ll be answering my phone and checking voicemail) will be around to help. If your request for laminating or a folder delivery is urgent, there’s no use letting it sit idly in my inbox. Please call a volunteer at the ** and they will gladly help you.
Seconded, with one exception: I got one once from a distant coworker which said “I have broken my arm in a kitten-related fall and will be out for (…)”. Everyone else uses boilerplate language so that one definitely stood out, but I thought it was the right level of mildly amusing.
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I worked for a federal contractor back during the Great Recession when government offices were shut down/working with a skeleton crew. I still remember getting OOOs from almost every email address in the agency we worked at explaining they were on furlough & to contact one specific person if the issue was urgent. We all assumed this poor person was hiding under her desk, rocking back & forth, with her head in her hands.
“There is something especially cruel about advocating for your boundaries while disrespecting other peoples.”
I’m the same. I don’t find it condescending, it’s kinda eye-rolly but also kinda charming! I get why it could be annoying if you need info quickly. But really, why not inject a little silliness into boilerplate messages like this, as long as it’s not disrespectful or really out of step with your field culture?
An out-of-office message is an automatic response to emails you receive that lets the sender know you’re not currently working.
Hey, why are you being so sneaky about where you've disappeared to? If you're not on vacation and your out of office is for a work trip, well darn it, work that! [Editor's note: Pun totally intended.]
3) I am out of the office from mm/dd to mm/dd and will not be checking email. It’s likely your note will be swallowed in a sea of inbox banality, never to be seen again. If you require a response, please re-send your email after mm/dd.
› Url: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/learning-innovation/out-office-messages Go Now
You can include the range of dates that you will be away, but ultimately the sender wants to know when they can reach you again.
Dear Customer, Please note that all company offices will be closed from [date]. We will reopen on [date] We wish you the best holiday. Regards, [Company name]
Your out-of-office message needs to set expectations around communication. First, provide information about when you’ll return. Misner suggests giving yourself an extra date to catch up.
I might sound nitpicky but the language is important. “Might” or “may be” or “slower than usual” are vague and don’t offer the sender all that much information about when you’re really going to respond to them. Worse, they do a horrible job of protecting the time of the email receiver who, as the responder notes, is not in the office! Such a responder implies that, not only will the vacationer reply to the email, but they may not even miss a beat. They may be slow to respond, but they also might not.
Everything’s a little off-kilter as we continue to contend with the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s hard to step away from work when the “office” is the dining room table you can see from your couch. It feels a little strange to take PTO when travel and boisterous family gatherings seem like a distant memory. You might be working odd hours so you can juggle childcare and other responsibilities. Or maybe your full-time job became a part-time one (or an on-hold one) as a result of the economic downturn that hit along with the coronavirus.
Don’t be afraid to use a pop cultural reference that the audience would recognize. Instead of bemoaning your absence, they’ll have something fun and familiar to laugh at.
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.
Which to my mind lets people know when I’m back and that I will get back to them after that date, as well as who to contact for more urgent stuff. But every time, Wakeen gets teapot questions because people apparently can’t be bothered to finish reading and they both get questions on stuff that is not due for weeks after I return.