Willamette University HomeStories and NewsToday @ WillamettePast Issues2020December 11, 2020Winter break closure information for employees Winter break closure information for employees
If this matter isn’t time-sensitive, rest assured that I’ll respond when I’m back in the office. But, if this is an urgent request, please resend any messages that require my immediate attention with a subject line of “URGENT: [Original Subject]”.
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If it’s not important and you’re just a little bit bored then you can amuse yourself with these fun facts until I return. When hippos are upset, their sweat turns red. Bananas are curved because they grow towards the sun. There are approximately 100,000 hairs on a human head. You can buy eel flavoured ice cream in Japan. A group of jellyfish is called a smack.
If you need assistance before my return please contact (name of colleague covering for you, with contact details).
I work in a culture where even when you say you won’t have access to email, you are expected to be checking. I include this only on the internal auto-response, so that the people in my company know that when I say I won’t have access to email (which is also explained in the email), I mean it. Nothing else seems to work.
Q. Are there any departments or clinics on the Health Science Campus that will be closed during winter break?
When we set an out-of-office, we don’t immediately think of lead generation. However, it is a good opportunity to this end. For instance, you could encourage attendance for a webinar or future event, suggest sign-ups for online courses, give links to book downloads, or point recipients in the direction of any other product or service you are pushing. As well as informing the recipient of your unavailability, you are encouraging them to act.
For immediate assistance, please contact me on my cell phone at 0912345678 or [email protected].
Thanks for your email. I am on leave on 4th January 2021. I will revert to you once I’m back to work on 5th January 2021.
My colleague does that just for holidays.. it does say who else to contact, but tbh if I’m emailing him a couple of days before he’s due to return then I’m not massively impressed at the insinuation I should take the action of remembering to resend it… in reality I think he probably does read *some* emails but clearly views the OOO as a way to absolve responsibility if he misses something..
For urgent matters please reach out using my mobile number +111 1111. For technical related issues please contact [email protected]
The dialogue “You may remember me from..” by Troy McClure is uncannily iconic for all Simpsons fans. It has also evolved into an autoresponder saga. By the time the reader realizes that they are going to wait a while, they would have already had the fun of reading this hilarious convo. Have a look at this funny out of office reply and see if your associates would love to hear it:
Mine tend towards the latter for both internal and external and only get a little more expository if it’s a closedown period and I’m adding leave to one end of it, but that’s a simple “The organisation is shut between X and Y. For emergencies during this time please contact Team. I am on leave between Z and B and will not be accessing my email during this time. Please contact Email Address if your enquiry is urgent otherwise I will attend to your email as soon as is practicable upon my return.”
So there you have it! While having fun with your auto-responder, try not to get carried away and end up upsetting anyone or get in trouble with HR! 😉
But you don’t need to write an instruction guide for people as though they’re incapable of solving their own problems without you.
Well, if you become too sick to work for longer than that, what happens then? Surely there’s some backup. If not, you’re not always going to be able to keep that promise.
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