I once had a coworker who would put up OOOs for absolutely everything, and it irked me to an unreasonable level. Spending the afternoon working with a colleague on a project? OOO. Just returned from vacation and trying to catch up? OOO. A lot of meetings that day? OOO.
Not quite an OOO, but a former boss had an email signature that said she was doing field work so her email responses would be delayed.
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Depending on your idea of holidays as no-business time of the year, you may decide to leave at least one communication channel open, or provide additional information in case of urgent inquiries. In any case, you can add the following information to the mix: You can provide your mobile number, while noting that it can be used only in exceptional situations You can leave contact information of a person that will handle correspondence in your absence You can inform your customers that you will only check emails with “URGENT” in their subject
OMG if I got this OOO message I would pee my pants laughing! I think its brilliant! (But perhaps thats my weirdness popping out again… shoo shoo get back)
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A. To best serve your customers, whether its students, alumni, consumers or other UToledo stakeholders, all department/office and individual voicemail and out-of-office email messages should let them know that UToledo is closed for winter break. Examples of messages you may want to use are below.
I think the problem is that “at your earliest convenience” is a formulaic convention that uses explicit, almost exaggerated politeness to basically issue a stern direction, meaning “as soon as you possibly can”. When you turn it into “at my earliest convenience” it’s unclear if you mean “whenever it’s convenient for me to get to it” (what the words say) or “as soon as I possibly can” (what the meaning of the formulaic original is). Or else it sounds like you didn’t quite understand how “at your earliest convenience” works.
Hoo boy, have I got some PTSD from Old Job about out of office autoreplies. Exboss was such a stickler for them and actually enforced her expectations as official policy. Meaning if you didn’t do it to her exact specs, she’d call you back to the office to do it (which no one did) and read you the riot act afterwards while threatening to write you up for insubordination. She demanded them any time that we were away from our desk for longer than 30 minutes and for anything other than a meeting. So training in the conference room down the hall, a work lunch with teammates, leaving an hour early for an appointment, arriving late for an appointment, even working from home, all required OOO alerts.
List the full name, phone number and email of an assistant or a coworker who can respond to messages and meet deadlines in your absence. If more than one person is handling your duties, list each one and the reason for contacting them. In some cases, you may consider providing a way to reach you in case of an emergency.
No one should be calling during the holidays, and yet some people do. When you’re out for the holidays, create a voicemail greeting that communicates the cheerfulness of the season while still staying professional.
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I’m not bothered by it, but I use “when I return” instead. I don’t want people to think I’m checking emails when I’m out.
The kicker is that they all get back on August 1st and are mad that their projects haven’t moved forward.
I am currently out of the office and will not have access to email. Please contact Elena Prince at [email protected] in my absence.
And just like that, you covered the essentials. You don’t always need to have a Shakespeare-like auto-responder. If you, however, prefer a little creativity, continue reading- it gets more interesting.
It is important to understand that your auto-response message can go to anybody, even your top management people. Try to avoid any embarrassment by taking the time to proofread the message.