For comparison my current (not great) boss sent an out of office recently detailing how he would be out because he was on his personal sail boat all day, sailing from vacation destination X back to our port city. At length. In a pandemic. When we all had our wages frozen at the start of the crisis.
I had a boss who was mad if I put his full name on my OOO. I was his deputy. He said people should know how to contact him if I just use his first name. He thought the public would get his info (public-facing office but we didn’t correspond with the public at our level, of course). It made me feel very very silly to comply.
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After X enjoyable years, I do not work at [company] any more. Please contact [insert name and email] for enquiries relating to [subjects], or myself at [email] for personal matters.
Once they realize that your office is currently closed, the most important piece of information they probably want to know is your standard business hours. While this information can be tucked behind a phone menu option, it's best to state it upfront in your after hours recording.
Dear Customer, Our office will be closed from [date] until [date] and close again for December and January to welcome the New Year. We wish you the warmest holiday. Regards, [Company name]
The kicker is that they all get back on August 1st and are mad that their projects haven’t moved forward.
Okay. So, it’s not to my exact personal tastes — to me, it’s overly wordy — but it’s probably fine for their culture and I’d be mildly amused if I got it. I see where you’re seeing condescension, but I think you can read it without that too.
Think about a soon-to-be-ex-colleague that really could do with some extra enquiries forwarded their way (call it 'paying it forward').
Who talks like that? A blowhard, that’s who… I promise, gentle customer, you won’t hear garbage like that from me. I’ll tell you why I like Aviation… Because it tastes like somebody finally made a gin for everyone.
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I have always said that I’m taking annual leave so that still applies for me – but that’s pretty standard for my company.
On that same day, President Eisenhower sent a letter to the Honorable Harvey V. Higley, Administrator of Veterans' Affairs (VA), designating him as Chairman of the Veterans Day National Committee.
Usually, you have the option ready, and all you have to do is go to your email settings. Once you are there, you will see something like Automatic Replies, or even Out of office AutoReply, as it is with Gmail:
Out-of-office auto-replies that keep happening over and over on CC’ed email threads.
Scared of offending a coworker who may or may not celebrate the holidays? Worry not — I’ve got the perfect email for you. If this OOO message does anything particularly well, it's that it respects the differing views, religions, traditions, and opinions of your coworkers — while amusing so many others.
Here is a quick checklist of 65 messages that will be useful to make your holiday closing smooth and efficient, from setting gone-for-the-holiday notifications to resetting thermostats.
Whether you prefer to keep it simple or have a little fun with your OOO message, it’s always essential to include the basics so you don’t have a mountain of emails to respond to when you get back. Then, all there’s left to do is stay out of your inbox and enjoy your vacation fully!