I work for a Japanese company which has a regular rotation of engineers who come over for 2-4 years so we get some enjoyable translations for all manner of communication.
She, if I recall, had a few comments from people when she got back regarding her words (she was on annual leave on holiday, it wasn’t a family emergency or anything that might excuse the tone). It rubbed quite a few people up the wrong way (most of them parents themselves!). Don’t recall more of an outcome though, I wasn’t at that firm long.
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If you’re off to have fun on your vacation, you might as well have some fun in your OOO message! And hey, you might inspire someone else to start planning their next holiday.
Two to three sentences is usually enough to tell recipients everything they need to know.
Happy holidays! I am currently getting into the holiday spirit, and so is the rest of the office. I'll be sure to respond to your email when I return to work on Dec. 28, 2020. Thank you for your patience, and I hope you and your loved ones have a joyous holiday. All the best, Lennox Haven Marketing Director
For many roles, of course, the sort of OoO described wouldn’t work. But there are a lot of roles where people would survive just fine letting their requests sit for an extra week before forwarding again. And especially at smaller companies where there they might be pressed for coverage when people are out, I think it’s great to normalise that a job is basically ‘off-line’ for a week or two so that the employee can rest and recharge.
My grandboss used to put in his OOO: ‘I’m out of the office. If you need x or y, contact Andy or Jane. They know stuff.
Yes! I would roll my eyes *a*lot* at that message – it comes across as someone taking themselves way too seriously.
Not sure how that particular storm shook out, but it was a classic example of the owner’s narcissism and need to have all of our lives centered around her business “family” with no boundaries.
Sample out-of-office email message: “Thank you for your message. The University of Toledo is closed for winter break. If your message requires a response, I will reply after New Year's Day during normal business hours. Happy holidays!”
For any requests you might have, feel free to reach out our [Title] [Name] at [email / phone].
Optionally, click the Attach Invoice checkbox to automatically attach the customer’s invoice to the auto-response.
The following examples and text ideas can be used for almost any kind of holiday / vacation messages. You can switch the language of the text blocks by pressing the tab button.
The other being I did it once at my current job, pointed them to my boss, and he called me every time someone reached out to him. It was SUPER annoying, because not a single thing was time sensitive or really even remotely important, and if I hadn’t given a contact person they would have just waited. But I’m really the only person that does that I do, so when I’m gone, they just have to wait. :shrug:
I had a coworker that (pre-covid) had an out of office set up any time she worked from home. She didn’t operate any differently than when she was in the office, and there wasn’t any information in the message, just “FYI I’m wfh today”. It was weird to keep getting those messages, since her working from home had zero effect on your correspondence with her.
Hello, I’m away for the weekend. Back on Wednesday. I’m in [COUNTRY] drinking coffee. Eating lots of food. Should have internet on the evenings to answer the important emails. Please send photos of penguins to Twitter @[HANDLE] to alert me that you’ve sent an email. This is most important.
I do this when I’m on personal vacations. When I’m doing field work for research, I do tend to add a statement that I won’t have access to email/phone because I’m doing field work in X location.