Amen. I have a co-worker who’s out of office message is always “spending time with my kiddos.” I don’t care. Just tell me who to contact and/or when you’ll be back.
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Here’s my OOO nightmare: when I was a graduate intern a few years ago, there was a volunteer with severe, marginally treated mental health concerns. Her behavior toward me was inappropriate to the point that my school assisted me with a safety plan. I obviously blocked her on everything I could think of. Unfortunately while I was on winter break she emailed my agency address from an account no one knew about, got my OOO message, assumed it meant I was open to communicating again, and proceeded to have a monthlong meltdown in my inbox when I didn’t respond. To this day I am grateful for my city’s utter lack of public transit, which prevented her from trying to find my home and family.
My pet peeve is when people put a contact in there but then don’t include their contact info, assuming anyone would have it. I don’t always and that’s super annoying.
For all pressing matters, please contact [Contact Name] at [contact email] for assistance.
Over Twitter DMs, one woman sent me her OOO messages from when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The messages — composed while she was undergoing chemotherapy treatments and recovering from surgery — were detailed and unique. They offered touches of humor, honesty, details about her treatment schedules and set expectations for others trying to reach her. She offered alternative contact options for potential emailers to make sure urgent requests didn’t fall through the cracks but offered a dose or reality as well. I particularly appreciated this line:
I appreciate your attempt to connect with me today, but unfortunately I am no longer available at this email, or organization.
I will surely respond to your email when I’m back in the office. But, if this requires an immediate response, please resend any messages that require my immediate attention with a subject line of “URGENT: [Original Subject]”.
I’ve heard “please respond at *your* earliest convenience,” but never the other way around.
Hello, Happy holidays! Thank you for your email; we are currently closed for the Easter holidays. It won’t be possible to respond to our email as I have limited access to the internet. But once I am back I will respond as quickly as usual. Kind Regards,
8. Didn’t get the gift you wanted? Is it possible to sell Christmas gifts after Christmas has ended? As it turns out, it is. You just need to focus on a different audience.
As a result, our text-based work communication has morphed into a series of strange, stilted, passive aggressive, and performatively upbeat exchanges. Much of the actual text of work email exchanges is ornamental filler language filled with exclamation points and phrases like “just looping back on this” that mask burnout, frustrated obligation, and sometimes outright contempt (the absolute best example of this is a wonderful 2015 post titled, “Just Checking In,” where writers Virginia Heffernan and Paul Ford write fake emails in this vein to see who can cause the other the most panic).
Humans are, by nature, social creatures—but that doesn't always mean that being social is enjoyable. Here are the 4 kinds of communicators and how to speak with them effectively.
If you need immediate assistance during my absence, please contact [contact’s name] at [contact’s email address]. Otherwise, I will respond to your emails as soon as possible when I return.
3. We do holidays our own way. When you hear the name Black Friday, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? It’s probably one of the following: discounts, sales, or free shipping.
Every employee email is an opportunity to tell your customers and clients of your Christmas opening hours. Letting your customers know when you’re open is especially important if you have international customers whose offices will be open over the festive period. Also, make sure you remember to turn on an auto-response when your office is
An automatic response should include the date when you left, a reason (vacation, sick leave, a conference, etc) and, if possible, the date when you plan to come back. Thank your client for their email, promise to get back to it as soon as possible and apologize for the inconvenience. Also, it should be obvious that you’re out of office from the first sentence.