Well, on the one hand, it’s rude, on the other hand, odds are at least fairly high that the person ended up having to reach out to someone else to get it done. Or that it’ll take the person another week or two just to find their problem in a thousand emails that came in while they were on vacation.
It’s really on you to stay up to stuff, manage requests coming in, manage your time and workload. You shouldn’t expect all your coworkers, customers, people you work with to cater to your personal schedule.
.
Q. What if I need to work during winter break, such as to conduct ongoing research that cannot be delayed until after the break?
The example above (which comes from NY Times) may not take advantage of some of the tips we mentioned, but it’s great because it’s so short. Due to its absent-minded straightforwardness, such a message can be perceived as a real, non-automated reply — as if you were so busy that you only carved out a few seconds to type these five words.
You’ve been busy planning out your tasks, tying up loose ends, and working ahead to ensure you can disconnect, recharge, and relax over your holiday break.
I’ll be back in the office on 7/19 and will happily respond then. Have a great weekend! Holiday Out-of-Office Messages 10. “Holiday revelry and debauchery ahead. Proceed with caution (if you dare).”
And it's worth pointing out—in case, like me, you missed it because you were awed by her approach to her parental OOO—the response is completely in sync with the New York Times' culture/brand. (You can find her OOO with live links here.)
Why It’s Important That Your Business Has A Good Quality Website Sep 8 - The world has transformed its ways of searching businesses, products, services, etc., from manual telephone books to the internet. Not… Read More »
Hi, and thanks for writing! I’m out of the office with no access to email until [DATE]. If your request is urgent, you can contact [EMAIL] for assistance. Otherwise, I’ll get back to you as quickly as possible when I return. While you wait, why not subscribe to our fantastic newsletter? You’ll get actionable tips once per week geared toward helping you grow your online business. Join us here [link].
Make sure that customers who attempt to contact you know when you expect to be in the office again. Most customers will understand the desire to devote time and energy to the family during the holidays, but they want to know when you'll be back to provide them with your usual excellent customer service.
Image Source: https://www.yesware.com/wp-content/uploads/out-of-office-example-8.png
Working from home? Try these OOO messages to let people know you’re taking a break. 16. “I’ll get back to you once I’m back from my long-awaited trip to the fridge.”
I had a colleague who simply never answered her phone or set up her voicemail. She still listed the number on her business card and email .sig, she just never answered or checked voicemail. When she took a new job another colleague inherited her phone number and when he went to set up his voicemail there were basically eight years’ worth of messages left for her that he had to delete.
I worked in a call center for Big-Evil-Bank for five years, and every new manager would have a different OOO policy/pet peeve that they would require phone-miners to follow. In particular, the memory of the six month period where we were forced to put an OOO up if we left our desk for so much as ONE HOUR smacked me in the face when I saw question. That was by far the worst/strangest/most tedious OOO policy I have ever been forced to follow.
Education Details: 1. The traditional ones. Hello, Thank you for your email. I will be out of the office until [date of return]. If there is a need for an immediate assistance, then feel free to reach out to my colleague [contact name] on [contact email/phone number] who should be able to help.
I wrote the above comment off the top of my head. I wish I had time to rewrite and edit it. I would have changed “their goldfish” to “a spider they accidentally stepped on”, and would have added more detail to the story of the sister’s death (e.g. “her Pomeranian yapping” rather than the less descriptive “her dog barking”). Unfortunately, I could not do the thorough writing job required for that comment because someone close to me recently … – The person whose out of office advertised his gig on the weekend, for anyone in travelling to [city] – The people in a certain department who have taken to saying things like “if you really need to contact me, call 000-YYY-XXXX where Y is the square root of [insert numbers] and X is the year plutonium was discovered.” – The ones where people have an auto response saying they only check their emails once a day between 1-2pm – “I’m on research leave and I may be slow to reply.” (Whereby it is guaranteed they will reply immediately, because academics do not *really* take breaks).
But what if you’re only taking off one day? Sometimes, it might seem silly to bother with an out-of-office for such a short amount of time–especially if it’s a day that a lot of other people are taking off (such as a national holiday). If people do need you to get back to them urgently, they’ll think they’re being ignored. (Even if you define “urgently” differently.) And if there’s a chance of an emergency landing in your inbox, it’ll be that much harder for you to unplug because you’ll just keep “checking in.”