If you are seeing this message, it is because I’m retired and having the time of my life. I may be out gardening, or fishing, or on a well-earned Caribbean cruise with my wife. Something you can look forward to when you’ve reached my status and vintage.
I guess I generally dislike ones where the person is actually around but just might take longer than usual to answer emails (except in public-facing inboxes, etc.) I understand that if I’m using email, you might not respond right away.
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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’ll also admit to not changing my voicemail for OoO in the past 3 or 4 years. I rarely get calls anymore it’s just not worth it… I figure if they don’t reach me by phone they’ve already emailed me or will email me after the voicemail.
No one thinks much about cybersecurity while traveling. However, email security company Tessian warns the out of office message actually plays right into the hands of threat actors and cybercriminals. It’s a social engineering attack vector that no one thinks about. The out of office message is ubiquitous and handy. But if it includes any personal information at all — such as attending a funeral or going out of the country — attackers have all the information they need to impersonate the person who is out of the office, without the attacker having to do any real work.
After a long hour at work, I like to get home, kick my slippers off and watch my wild dolphin, Jasper-Barnaby, swim in the moat. There’s nothing more relaxing than observing a wild dolphin at play in one’s backyard. My personal vocal-coach, Lyndon, once said that watching the sunset on my estate is the closest he’s ever come to God. I believe him.
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.
I have a confession to make: I haven't recorded a new voicemail greeting in nearly a decade. Since then, I've (hopefully) become more articulate, poised, and self-assured. But hear my voicemail recording, and you'd think I was still new to the work world, a little unsure of myself — and probably not an authority.
Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, I am currently out of the office and will not return until 3rd November.
You’ll have options to set a “first day” and “last day,” or just “first day.” If you want things truly automated, picking a “last day” will trigger the autoresponder to automatically turn itself off the day after the selected date. Of course, in those instances when you’re unsure of your exact return date, it’s best to leave this open-ended. The “out of office” subject line is much less creative and scientific than say, a cold email subject line or a marketing email subject line. More often than not, they’re very plain and simple, like the following:
I should add that I actually WISH I got more exciting OOO messages and/or that I felt like I could be more exciting with mine!
Here are some suggestions for what you should always include in your auto-reply emails when you are out of the office:
I think you talk to person X and ask them to cc you when they are dealing with things sent to them because of your OOO.
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.
Thanks for your note! I’ll be OOO from [date] to [date] and will not have access to email during that time. If this is an urgent matter, please contact [Contact Name] at [contact email].
I used to know someone who had a snarky message about how “if this is an emergency, there are no actual emergencies in my field,” and then encouraged someone to Google for “goats in trees” and calm down. Yes, she was allowed do that in her office.
In this post, I’ll share what makes a good voicemail greeting — and the best voicemail greeting scripts you can use.