The best way to spread Holiday cheer, is screaming “Out of the Office” for all to hear…
So, take a lesson from @courtwhip, editor at PEDESTRIAN.TV, who wrote the above hilarious out-of-office email, fully stocked with mentions of the best movies from the 1990s. (By the way, "Splinter" is from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and as we all know, he loves pizza.)
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Please note that I will be completely disconnected from email and will not be checking messages until I return. So, if you need urgent assistance, please send an email to [Contact Name] at [contact email].
Does your company publish blogs or offer downloadable ebooks, reports, or case studies? If so, add a P.S. to the end of your vacation message linking your readers to some content they can learn from or engage with.
Note that the poaching email does not have any other contact details other than the leaver's - this is to try and funnel all enquiries to the leaver as part of the poaching plan! More tips here.
IDK, I try to change my OOO if I’m out for a day. It might not be completely necessary, but I’d rather inform people, and it doesn’t happen often enough to be annoying for me.
When you update your voicemail or turn on your email client’s out-of-office greeting, there are three basic things you must share in your message: When you’re leaving, when you plan on responding to your messages upon returning, and who they can contact if they need to talk to someone right away.
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Thanks for your email. I’m currently attending [insert event, conference etc here], and will return on [date of return].
I was always a little bit skittish about OOO’s in the pre-smartphone days. I don’t like the idea of announcing to the world that my house is going to be unoccupied all week.
As a “don’t try this at home” anecdote, last week we had an all staff retreat, and we were asked to put up away messages. I put a perfectly professional one up for outside email, but in a fit of whimsy, the internal mail triggered an away message that said “Why are you emailing? We are supposed to be paying attention to the retreat!” I figured, we were all at the retreat, so nobody would ever know. Of course, someone did email me 30 minutes before everything started, and triggered the message. Fortunately, he figured out it was an away message and thought it was funny.
I love this! I don’t think its annoying at all– its literally sharing the mission of your work.
Have you ever called a company’s support line just to be confronted with an unsympathetic and confusing attendant menu? Or tried to reach a representative, but pressing the “0” key does nothing?
Yeah, that’s not enough to stress over. Try coming back to tens of thousands after parental leave.
Setting up an out of office message in Gmail is simple. First, (1) put the message you wrote in the text box and format it properly. Then (2) choose a schedule for your auto-replies. If you know by which date you’re going to get back to the office, you can put that day in. Gmail will then automatically stop sending out auto-replies when the time comes. If you don’t know when you’re going to return you can leave it empty. Out of office replies can also be (3) manually toggled on or off at any time.
I will be on leave returning Monday, August 10th. Please anticipate a delay in response. For urgent requests or escalations, please contact:
Do you know what we’re doing too much of? We’re working too much, and we think too seriously about ourselves while doing it. That’s why including a joke or something fun in your out of office message could be so powerful.