Q. I work on Main Campus and don't have essential business to conduct during the winter break closure; however, I want to catch up on work before spring semester. May I work on campus?
Leave some lights on for safety, but turn off any unnecessary ones before leaving. Test that all main doors are locked, as well as any server or file rooms holding sensitive equipment or information.
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Thank you for you email. I am out of the office from [insert date] until [insert date]. If you have an urgent request, please contact [insert name] at [insert email].
I will be away from 03.04.2020 until 13.04.2020. For urgent matters, you can contact (COLLEAGUE NAME).
Over time I’ve pared my OOO messages down more and more to the absolutely essential. The main issue was whether to use first or third person. Either is fine, but it comes up because it’s nice to have the name of the OOO person in front of one’s eyes if one sends a lot of email and then finds stray OOO messages among the mail … “hmm, what was THIS one in response to…?”. – “I am absent the office today and will attend to your message by Monday, August 17.” – “I am traveling during the week of Monday, July 1 and may be unable to respond to your message immediately. For issues concerning the [operational project in remote area], please contact [co-worker]” – “Tamarack Fireweed is on leave from [date] to [date] with reduced access to email. Urgent messages can be routed as follows: For project X, please contact [person1]. For project Y please contact [person2]. For questions about [academic program] please write to [general alias]. “
“We went to New Zealand and I informed everyone in my [out of office] that I was ‘bungee jumping in Queenstown’, which seemed like what I should do in Queenstown,” the reader said.
Here is a quick checklist of 65 messages that will be useful to make your holiday closing smooth and efficient, from setting gone-for-the-holiday notifications to resetting thermostats.
Something that actually was an issue with my employer ages ago: at one time there was a policy that out of office would only go to internal people, and nothing would be sent at all to anyone external. Apparently this was felt necessary in order to mitigate risk of burglary, so people wouldn’t know that “John Winchester has gone on a hunting trip” and that his house was empty.
While I am out of the office, here’s our awesome e-book on “How To Choose The Right CRM For Your Business”. It’s free; enjoy it!
The boss’s thinking was that people who did drivebys looking for you would then email you, see your OOO, and then be able to call you to talk about whatever they were driving by for. No one liked putting their personal contact info so we never worked from home (pre-COVID and pre-VOIP implementation) or told people to IM us and we’d call them.
Mine tend towards the latter for both internal and external and only get a little more expository if it’s a closedown period and I’m adding leave to one end of it, but that’s a simple “The organisation is shut between X and Y. For emergencies during this time please contact Team. I am on leave between Z and B and will not be accessing my email during this time. Please contact Email Address if your enquiry is urgent otherwise I will attend to your email as soon as is practicable upon my return.”
Before we further discuss some of the examples of a good out of office message, decide for yourself what you want to get from it and what tone are you going to use.
I remember a phone tree that at the end of the normal boring options there was “To hear a duck press 8”
Yes – it’s become a stock phrase that people think sounds polite but they’re not grasping the nuance of it.
Why is Aviation the best damn gin on the planet? What sets it apart from other gins on the market? Do people who ask and then answer their own questions have an above average IQ? Probably.
If it’s anything less than a business day, it just becomes this extra beacon of our completely toxic and out of whack work culture that insists we be reachable every second.
I would be SUPER annoyed to get this! I agree it seems condescending and it’s just too long.