Option 3: If it’s an inferno, skip the line. Is everything burning and only a master of existential threats could help? First, flattered you even contacted me. Now get going and contact my supervisor. He is the elusive one you’re looking for.
I typically say “thanks for your message, I’m out until blah date, with periodic access to email” or no access depending. I list contacts who are willing to pitch in if necessary, and list the day AFTER my return that I’ll be able to address messages.
.
Vacation Tracker helped me book some days off, so you will not be able to reach me until *date*! I will be busy surfing the waves in Portugal/ climbing Kilimanjaro/ taking pictures on the Great Wall of China/ exploring wildlife in Tanzania.
When was today? Did you leave the sign up or is it freshly posted? Etc. People, use dates!
We’re not saying you’re boring but you do work in a fairly serious corporate environment. As a result, your out of office needs to be quite to the point but you also like to throw in a little pitch too, you cheeky sod.
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5.) Gentile Cliente, il nostro ufficio sarà chiuso dal 24 Dicembre fino al 2 Gennaio. Potete contattarci come sempre da Lunedì 5 Gennaio. Auguriamo a voi e alla vostra famiglia un felice Natale e un Buon Anno Nuovo di successo.
Hopefully they drop it because it doesn’t seem appropriate. If they don’t, I’d suggest something like Today is National Pirate Day, today is John Lennon birthday under your signature. It’s a fun random fact without being offensive and easy enough to do. Yet also a pain in the ass of course; )
The tone of your out-of-office auto-reply may vary depending on the intended recipient of your email.
Your clients don’t have a lot of time, and neither do you. Use the following short voicemail greetings to get to the point quickly and invite them to leave a message.
Thank you again for being the best team one could ask for. Your energy and persistence has driven our company to new heights, and we greatly appreciate it.
I’m with you on this one. Management has access to a mansion and a townhouse in two different fabulous vacation destinations and it burns my butt every time I see an out of office from one of them (98% white men) going on about how they’ll be enjoying this perk. In the meantime, a few years back we had to eliminate free coffee at the offices because business was not good enough (it was eventually brought back after company president realized after a year that people were really pissed).
I will be out of the office on Thursday, November 8th, and Friday, November 9th. I will be back in the office on Monday, November 12th, and will not be responding to any emails until that time.
I once worked somewhere that required an all-office email if you were going to be late, if you had an appointment, etc. I hated that. No one needed to know I was going to the dentist, but it was policy so I did it.
The science fiction writer John Scalzi says “The failure mode of clever is asshole,” which seems to apply here.
Not an OOO issue but the comment about PTSD from OldJob reminded me of this. I am a recreational sailor who often made longer offshore trips as my vacation. OldBoss INSISTED that we provide contact instructions. Mine was some variant of “Dial O and ask for the Marine Operator. Give them [name of boat], [call sign] and [approximate location by date] along with your name and credit card number. We will be monitoring Channel 16 at these times…..” Never got a call. Word spread and there was a sudden epidemic of sailing vacations in my office!
Given free rein, I’d absolutely love to tell people that needing me to show them how to do X in Excel is actually not a vacation-interrupting emergency and there are tons of free videos that would explain that, if they did not want to contact the actual departments who handle tech support and training. Or that this project they’ve known about for a month but decided to keep under their hat until it became an emergency is something they’ll need to resolve themselves. But that would not fly at all.