Of course, I had one POTENTIAL cient who got the “I’m in court and can’t call you back” repeatedly calling and demanding to know why I wasn’t calling him back. Like “I;m IN COURT DUDE. The JUDGE takes precedence over you.” He really expected me to tell the judge to take a recesss so I could call him back. I eventually got back to him with an email “I think you might be better off with another attorney.”
Should the matter be important, please contact Jim Ross ([email protected]) in my absence. Kind regards.
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Season’s Greetings! It’s my favorite time of year, which means I’m currently out of the office chugging mugs of cocoa, stuffing my face with cookies, and attempting to fulfill my life-long goal of memorizing every single line of [FAVORITE HOLIDAY MOVIE]. I’ll be back in front of my computer on [DATE] and will respond to your message at that time. If you need immediate assistance, please send an email to [NAME] at [EMAIL] so that the other elves in this workshop can help you out. Happy ho-ho-holidays!
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Thanks for your email. I'm currently on [reason]. I'll be out of the office from [date] and will be back on [date]. For immediate assistance, please contact [person name] at [person's email]. 6 Tips for Being Productive While Working From Home 20 Powerful TED Talks to Improve Your Leadership Skills
My colleagues have this weird habit of not using out of office messages, but instead, sending all staff or all manager emails before they go on vacation letting everyone know they’re going to be gone for x amount of time. It’s really odd. I do not do this.
If you’re taking a few days off and want to respond only to urgent emails, this template would be a great fit.
Plus, he incorporated a delightful technique to let people know that if they really wanted him to read their emails, they should probably send them again after his return. Not only does that keep the sender accountable by saying, "If this is really important, you know when to reach me," but it also helps him truly vacate his work while he's away. And that's hard to do.
Confirm your greeting is set for each day you are closed to play the “holiday” or “closed” greeting. Check your on-call option is working properly, when applicable.
I say “I am out of the office without access to email” to avoid the expectation that I’ll check on vacation. With a contact for anything urgent given.
Hijacking this with a question- what do you do when you no longer have an co-workers to serve as an out of office contact? I find myself putting up the OOO less and less, because there’s no one left to respond to anything in my absence (beyond my supervisor who has no knowledge of how to do the tasks of my job).
You don’t have to disclose the specific reason for your absence in your out-of-office message. You can simply say “I’m on leave” or “I’m currently out of the office.” This goes for any reason you’re OOO.
I do this, too, especially if I’m out for longer than a day or two. I like giving myself a bit of breathing room to dig out of the inbox.
I’ve seen similar things with OOO messages where people would update them practically daily. “I’ll be away from my desk from 9-2 with intermittent emails and then on a call from 3:-3:45” and ….dude. We don’t need that much detail every day.
I love this and want to start using it. I am assuming it’s pronounced “hood-a-lay” and that said hodilay has already begun when the OOO message was written!
There’s no shame in using Christmas to indulge in your childhood movie tastes, but there is shame in not sharing that adorable side of yourself when people are trying to reach you during the holidays.
We had to do this at my prior position so that agents knew that we were in the office that specific day. Now i dont even use my phone as most internal people call me on Teams.