To ensure your out-of-office email is thoughtful and useful, we’ve compiled all the important information and three handy (copy-and-paste ready!) out-office-email examples.
However, I will be taking periodic breaks from binge-watching everything I’ve missed to check my email [once per day/every evening/occasionally] while I’m away.
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Yes, I phoned a dentist office late in the day for a reinfected root canal problem and got a cutsy “humphrey bogart” fake reply on their voicemail — I thought it was extremely inappropriate for a business office to use something like this. It was hard to find it funny, especially because while calling me “sweetheart” and all that, the message didn’t actually tell me when they might return my call (later that day? Next day? Next week? Never?) nor did they offer any options for emergency contact with another dentist.
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As your email will not be forwarded, please contact in the meantime my colleague, Mary, 0912345678, [email protected].
A. You should not. Office access will be restricted and operations limited to help reduce utility costs and other related expenses. Unless you are pre-approved by your department leadership to be on campus because your work cannot be interrupted by winter break – for instance, because you have research that would be adversely impacted – you should not be on campus during winter break. This break was established to promote health and well-being, so please take advantage of it.
I find it rude because if I emailed them, it might be an FYI but requiring no action. If they just delete it, they might then be confused about project status later. I would be annoyed to have to re-send a message after the fact because they don’t think ANY email during their time off has value.
However, I will be taking periodic breaks from binge-watching everything I’ve missed to check my email [once per day/every evening/occasionally] while I’m away.
But nope, we’ve created a world where “I have a dentist appointment and won’t be in until 10 today” is cause for alarm.
If you’ve been inspired by Rachael’s efforts and want to spread a little festive cheer, there are some fantastic examples to help you do just that...!
Voice mail is a strictly worse medium than almost any alternative. You don’t get the opportunity to converse and ask questions back and forth like you do with a phone call; you can’t extract information efficiently from the message like you can with an email (the old “ugh, I have to listen to this entire message over again just to check one thing he said at the end” scenario).
I think my personal VM still says, “Ahoy, ahoy!” In my best Mr. Burns voice. I’m a woman.
When you’re trying to contact someone on a matter of importance (or even urgency) on one side of the equation and you find out via an autoresponder that they are away for vacation, it can be incredibly frustrating unless they’ve done the front-end work beforehand. (I’m speaking from personal – and recent – experience here. And worse, there was no auto-responder set up. I had to use the – gasp! – telephone to find out what was going on.)
Which is why the workers who do have the ability, whether through place within the hierarchy or company culture, should not squander it. In fact, they should recognize the OOO as an opportunity to model and normalize organizational or even industry-wide guardrails (as opposed to bullshit feebly-maintained ‘boundaries’). It’s why, starting this summer, we need to embrace the blunt, descriptive OOO message.
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Oh hey, It’s Christmas, what are you doing emailing me? I’m extremely busy watching Home Alone, Die Hard, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Christmas Special on repeat until the new year. I might stop for food and toilet breaks, I also might now. Regardless of my general health and hygiene over the silly season, I’ll be back in office on January nd. Catch ya then, don’t forget to buy a pepperoni pizza for Splinter.
Front makes it easy to save vacation responders and turn them on and off. If you're not on Front (yet!) here's how to save one in Gmail or Outlook. Then just copy your message into your vacation responder, rest assured your emails will get a response, and hit that glorious "Sign out" button.