Don't leave your sender guessing. Let them know when you'll be out and the date you'll be back in the office — not when you're returning home.
My OOO messages are always pretty casual, and the last line in the list of “for X, contact Y” is always something like “for chili recipes, contact Z”.
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I wonder if anyone ever calculated how much time was wasted producing those messages.
Same. I’ve been out of the office for over a year and did not change my voicemail message on my desk phone, nor have I checked it in that year. To be very honest, I didn’t usually check it even when I was in the office.
Let them know that while you’re not technically OOO, you aren’t operating at typical capacity.
One of your European connections here. When I know the person covering me will also be away for part of the time I’m gone, I get another colleague to cover for those dates and put that in my OOO. Saying “Your e-mail will not be read” or similar is really off-putting. The youth worker at my church does this and I find it infuriating. Of course it won’t. That’s the point of a holiday. When I get an answer from someone who reads his e-mails on vacation I’m pleasantly surprised.
Education Details: Sending one of this autoresponder out of office email message examples before you go on a vacation will help lessen the burden of responding to angry client emails. FORMAL TEMPLATE #1 : Out of Office Message Example. Hi, Thank you for your email. I’m out of the office, with no email access, until [Date of Return]. on vacation out of office
On behalf of all people who have trouble typing on the miniature keyboards, my apologies :)
I say “as soon as possible,” which to me means “as soon as possible after I get back to the office, make myself a coffee, throw out the milk I forgot in the fridge, chat with my colleagues a bit, check in with my boss, and triage all the new emails and VMs that came in while I was away.”
Thanks so much for your email. I’ve decided to take advantage of the holiday weekend and truly take [Monday/Friday] off. In an effort to come back fully recharged, I won’t be checking my email. Don’t worry though, if it’s urgent, you can reach out to [name] at [email address].
I once had a coworker who would put up OOOs for absolutely everything, and it irked me to an unreasonable level. Spending the afternoon working with a colleague on a project? OOO. Just returned from vacation and trying to catch up? OOO. A lot of meetings that day? OOO.
If you set up a vacation reply but people say they are not getting the reply, it could be one of the following:
I wouldn’t hate voicemail so much if people were better at leaving voice mails– If your voice mail is much longer than 30 seconds, you’re doing it wrong! If it’s just “It’s Bob, call me back”, you’re also doing it wrong! The voicemail sweet spot is something like this:
I think this is great. A little too long, but it would work well as an internal reply in a large office with the right kinda culture. I’m imagining how useful it would be in my previous office with 300+ people that always had some “fire” or another to put out. I also appreciate how it protects the sender’s time off–at no point does it say “ok, fine. contact me.”
Thank you for your email. Your message is important to me and I will respond as soon as possible. Thank you!
Our auto-replies to outside people are two or three paragraphs long though, which feels ridiculous but is actually necessary.
Confirm any expected deliveries will not be left at your door or unattended. Reschedule if necessary.