Goofy dad joke that doesn’t require changing with the calendar. “What do you call a cephalopod carved out of ice? COOLAMARI.” You’re set for at least three vacations on that one.
Yeah. The overly cute OOO message reminds me of the overly cute messages people used to leave on their answering machines back in the day. “Hi, this is Jim. Hello? *pause* Hello? Is anyone there? *pause* Just kidding, I’m the one who’s not here! Please leave a message after the beep.” or whatever. Like, it’s funny the first time, then it’s just annoying. Just let people know what they need to know.
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It’s wise to check they aren’t though. A colleague once had an out of office from an academic that simply said ‘on fieldwork’. Just those two words.
I find it rude, as well. If someone is emailing you (the royal you), it’s because they need something. Saying you’re just going to delete it without also giving that person a Plan B contact is totally rude. It sucks having to go through emails, it does. But it’s part of the job. In my role, I get requests from internal colleagues and from external partners. Even though I provide those partners with an alternate email to send their requests, it’s still my responsibility to make sure that the requests that were sent to me in my absence were handled. Saying “everything I’m sent will be deleted” just Would Not Fly in my industry.
Option 1: Wait it out. Ask yourself, “Is this urgent and important?” If it isn’t, take a beat and give me a chance to respond after I dig myself out of my inbox later this week. You and I will be better off with this expectation set now.
Naturally, she had to take the day off — and couldn’t let folks know with any old generic auto-response. Instead, she made a guessing game of it in her out-of-office email, which you can use for yourself, below.
Ha! Maybe she was short-circuiting someone who would send an email and then come over to her desk 5 minutes later to “see if you got my email.”
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.
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.
One nice compromise I’ve seen is that some people add upcoming PTO to their email signature for a week or two beforehand. That way the people you’re working with right then get a heads up without needing to spam everyone with the information.
In this post, I’ll share what makes a good voicemail greeting — and the best voicemail greeting scripts you can use.
And although my colleague had mixed feelings about her own parents joining that population in Florida, she couldn’t be too upset when her dad suggested flying down from Boston for a Red Sox spring training game.
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Very true, if the options came in reverse order (or maybe emergency first followed by not-urgent followed by urgent) that would be a little better.
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Here’s a peek at some great vacation samples of auto-reply messages, which are quick and to the point.
If it’s not that infinite loop of autoreply hell, you get the “I will not be reading or responding to any email sent during this time. Please resend your request after August 1st.” dismissal.