But of course, you have to take care of a lot of year-end reports — planning out tasks, tying up loose ends, and perhaps, preparing for the coming new year. And then of course, when you are finally done and ready to take a break, there’s one final thing you must take care of while you take your break with your loved ones: Your out-of-office response.
Oh hey, it’s Christmas, what are you doing emailing me? I’m extremely busy watching Home Alone, Die Hard, and the 1994 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 hygience over the silly season, I’ll be back in office on January 2nd. Catch ya then, don’t forget to buy a pepperoni pizza for Splinter.
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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!
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I think this makes a lot of sense for a 2-3 month absence, when there wouldn’t be much point in reading and responding to things when you get back. Questions will have been answered and issues resolved by different means.
At my current workplace, I got an OOO about someone being on sabbatical and off driving a vintage VW bus. Loved that one. But also got one about someone bringing a tiny human into the world – that was a weird overshare.
Out of office messages can be as concise or detailed as you need but should follow a standard structure. Here are two templates you can use to create your own message.
The hours in your signature is a great idea! I’m about to have a non-standard work schedule to accommodate medical appointments. Totally stealing this idea!
"I'll be out of the office from Monday, 12/14, and will be back on Monday, 12/21."
Leaving an email without a responder can appear unprofessional, lose potential business and, worst of all, make you look like Scrooge!
In general, because of my position (C suite) my OOO messages are boring and predictable. I’m out from xx date to xx date. If you need help in my absence, please contact xyz person. Otherwise, I will reply to your email upon my return. blah blah blah
That is kind of glorious. And it does make sense when the person you’re emailing is gone for months. I did something similar my last mat leave except I didn’t explicitly state it, and lo and behold, people figured out that I wasn’t going to catch their email from a month or so earlier unless they brought it up again.
I once emailed someone I barely knew to check on some materials he was supposed to send my boss and I received an auto-reply letting the world know that he was away in Vegas with his “boyz” to celebrate his divorce. I still don’t know why he felt this was important to share with business contacts. “I’m away for the week” was all the information I needed.
I will be out of the office from DATE LEAVING to DATE RETURNING. I wanted to assure you that I have handed off all important information off to DELEGATE’S NAME while I am away. Should you have any questions or need anything during this time, please feel free to contact DELEGATE’S NAME and they will do their best to assist you.
5.) Sehr geehrte Kunden, unser Büro ist vom 24 Dezember bis zum 2.Januar nicht besetzt. Sie erreichen uns wie gewohnt ab Montag den 5. Januar. Wir wünschen Ihnen und Ihrer Familie ein frohes Weihnachtsfest und ein gutes und erfolgreiches neue Jahr.
Thank you for your email! I am on vacation. Vacations are not for checking email, so I won’t be doing that. Fortunately, we rarely encounter life and death situations in the world of [INDUSTRY TYPE], and aren’t we all glad for that? If you think I’m checking email because you just received an email from me, that is only because I figured out the pixies that send emails on a schedule. Really, I’m not checking email.
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