Sure, Kopelman is truthful about the fact that he's on vacation, but he also lets the recipient know that he or she would be interrupting important family time if the first option is chosen. It states a point simply and uses humor to avoid making it sound like he wants the reader to feel guilty.
Naturally, she had to take the day off — and couldn't let folks know with any old generic auto-response. Instead, she made a guessing game of it in her out-of-office email, which you can use for yourself, below.
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7. No Specific Dates Out of Office Reply. [Your Greeting] Thank you for your email. I am currently out of the office and not able to respond to your email personally.
Yes! I hate the “at my earliest convenience” for the same reason – it comes across as “I’ll do it when I feel like it”. I would only use that phrase at work in terms of someone else (ie “at YOUR earliest convenience”).
Note: You can also set different automatic out of office replies for different people. Just click the Rules… button in the bottom-left corner and add a rule for each person or email subject.
Have you ever had one of those most amazing kind of days; the kind of day that you will remember when you are old and gray and telling your grandchildren stories? Well, I seem to have those days quite often. In fact, if you’re seeing this message, it’s probably because I’m having one of those kinds of days today, and I’m not going to respond to your message.
Yes – this might amuse me if I got it once, but it would get old very fast . Maybe as an internal message if it fit the office culture. If I were an outside client or contractor and got something like that I;d see it as unprofessional (although I get that cultures and industries differ)
So, not the literal first second I’m back at my desk. But as soon as I can, depending on where you land once I’ve taken a look at everything and set some priorities.
Yes, mine (for external e-mails) typically says somethingalong the lines of “I’m out of the office until [date/time] and messages to this address are not monitored in my absence. I will respond as soon as possible on my return. If your message is urgent, please re-send to my assistant [email address] or telephone [assistant’s number]” Internal it will usually just say “I’m out until [date/time] pass any urgent enquiries to [co-workers] ” although my assistant and a couple of others have my home number and personal e-mail so can get hold of me in a genuine emergency, and I will sometimes speak to them in advance if I’m willing to lower the bar on what amounts to an emergency, but I would not expect any of my employees to do that !
To then turn it off after your break, you follow the same steps but this time you simply check Vacation Responder Off instead of Vacation Responder On.
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.
Then wish them happy holidays, for example: I wish you and your family the very best this holiday season. I hope you have a wonderful time this Christmas. I wish you a Happy Christmas and a bright New Year. Peace and joy to you and your family this holiday season. I hope you have a nice and warm holiday season! I'm truly grateful to have a friend like you! Thinking of you with lots of love! I hope you enjoy a wonderful Christmas! How do I send a holiday email to a client?
Running away from your inbox or your work responsibilities doesn’t solve problems, it merely delays them. What boyd suggests, though, is something different. Her strategy asks us plan ahead of time: to construct an off ramp from our jobs as well as an on-ramp for the eventual re-entry. Her asks aren’t Herculean but they require some foresight — and they demand that a person be very upfront about what they want from their time off, and that they commit to protecting their time.
I did something similar the second time I took maternity leave, actually. I didn’t explicitly say, “I will delete all emails,” but instead I shared my backups’ contact info and invited people to contact me again when I was back from leave.
If you’ve written an out-of-office message before, you’ll surely know some of the basics. For the most part, they still apply during the pandemic, with a few additional considerations. Here’s a quick overview of what you should keep in mind as you compose your autoreply these days:
It’s possible I might quote from some responses to this in an upcoming column, so please note if you don’t want me to do that with yours!
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