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Scared of offending a coworker who may or may not celebrate the holidays? Worry not — I’ve got the perfect email for you. If this OOO message does anything particularly well, it's that it respects the differing views, religions, traditions, and opinions of your coworkers — while amusing so many others.
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I do this, too, especially if I’m out for longer than a day or two. I like giving myself a bit of breathing room to dig out of the inbox.
My absolute favorite was the one that literally said “hodilay”. Typo included, capitalization, or any other words, not.
A. Employees should take this time off to relax and recharge before spring semester commences. However, if you cannot take winter break because of research, for instance, you are not prohibited from working. All designated service areas must be pre-approved by senior leadership. If your work area cannot close during winter break, employees who work on a designated winter break day will have the opportunity to use the additional days off provided by the University at another time during the year. However, the winter break days must be used by June 30, 2021.
I’d then check off all that applied—people would laugh each time they saw it bc I’m such a predictable nerd, one or both of the first two lines was almost always checked off…and usually both!
My absolute favorite was the one that literally said “hodilay”. Typo included, capitalization, or any other words, not.
I once worked with a guy whose out of office reply stated that he was out at an interview, and whether or not he returned depended on how the interview went. He returned, so I guess it didn’t go THAT well.
I try to substitute “parental leave” for “maternity leave” whenever possible. Trying to normalize it as a benefit to all employees (at my company) rather than a special lady-vacation.
What was weirder is that it took a couple weeks after covid hit for her to turn the message off – which meant that when the entire company was wfh, we would still get an fyi message from her that she was also working from home.
Hi, I’ll be out of the office until [MM/DD]. I will probably see your message because I don’t know how to relax. I will likely respond if I feel that I need to help in any way.
I don’t think a lot of people working there made a habit of doing that, which is why a lot of people felt the no external OOO policy was excessive.
Both your customers and your employees need to know how long your business will be shut down for the holidays. Provide notice well in advance. Depending on the types of services you offer, you may need to start notifying customers as early as a month out. It would be best if you were to provide these important notifications at least two weeks before the holiday shutdown. Employees should also be reminded regularly that the company will not be open during those important days.
Have you sent a proper farewell email to the whole office, thanking everyone and wishing them well?
Meanwhile, feel free to get familiar with our newest article on [ARTICLE NAME AND LINK]. I’m sure you will find the content useful.
The problem was that this had to be done on deadline and people wanted me to do other things for them that weren’t time sensitive. So I put up an internal-only out of office that basically said “hey sorry I’m working on project X and we have a tight deadline. If this isn’t urgent I’ll get back to you next week. If it is urgent, let me know!”
I actually think that’s a really helpful out of office message? I appreciate how clear it is about who to contact in which circumstance (so you’re not having to do the awkward dance of trying to track down the right people while not inconveniencing the wrong ones), while maintaining a friendly-but-firm boundary around the vacationing person’s time (since none of the options include things like “here’s my cell phone number!”).