Who hasn’t longed to write something similarly huffy? Well, LA-based designer Paul Woods, for one. Woods is also the author of How to Do Great Work Without Being An Asshole and suggests opening your OOO with this: “Dear sender, As you are already aware, I am on vacation. However, as it appears that you have flagrantly ignored the numerous emails, in-person conversations and messages over the past week communicating this, below you can find a detailed recap what I will not be doing until my return…” It’s a recap that extends to wearing clothes, even in public, and moderating his consumption of hard liquor.
6.) Herzlich willkommen bei Mustermann. Unsere Telefon-Hotline ist über die Festtage nicht besetzt. Genaue Öffnungszeiten erfahren sie auf unser Website unter www.mustermann.de. Wir bedanken uns für Ihr Vertrauen und wünschen Ihnen und Ihren Lieben erholsame Feiertage und ein gutes neues Jahr.
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No one thinks much about cybersecurity while traveling. However, email security company Tessian warns the out of office message actually plays right into the hands of threat actors and cybercriminals. It’s a social engineering attack vector that no one thinks about. The out of office message is ubiquitous and handy. But if it includes any personal information at all — such as attending a funeral or going out of the country — attackers have all the information they need to impersonate the person who is out of the office, without the attacker having to do any real work.
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But you can do better than that. Surprisingly, you can get so much more out of such a simple letter. A good out-of-office can serve as a tool to generate leads, promote content, and help you stand out by showing off some creativity.
Loads of translators work freelance because it’s very easy to do from home, so yeah I’d not expect then to be standardised. I’ve received English and native language replies, but never both.
Setting up out of office messages removes the guesswork done by customers when a response doesn’t come back right away.
Kat is a Midwest-based freelance writer, covering topics related to careers, productivity, and the freelance life. In addition to The Muse, she's a contributor all over the web and dishes out research-backed advice for places like Atlassian, Trello, Toggl, Wrike, The Everygirl, FlexJobs, and more. She's also an Employment Advisor at a local college, and loves helping students prepare to thrive in careers (and lives!) they love. When she manages to escape from behind her computer screen, she's usually babying her two rescue mutts or continuing her search for the perfect taco. Say hi on Twitter @kat_boogaard or check out her website.
I agree! I’m in HR and all I can think of when I see funny OOO’s from people is, “How big of an a$$ are you going to feel when someone emails you about needing time off for a funeral and they get this nonsense back?”
Is this heaven? No, it’s Iowa. That’s where I’ll be for the next couple of days, giving my last out of town keynote of the year (yay!). I don’t know if there really is a Field of Dreams, but I’ll be in search of it in between checking emails and getting back to you as quickly as I can. If you need something while I’m stuck in a corn field, you can send a note to my assistant and she will be happy to help you.
What makes this a decent example of an OOO message is that it’s candid, (hopefully) honest, and blunt. There’s no guessing whether or not this dude is going to respond to your email this week. Also, it gives us a bit of an insight into his life right now, which helps communication in the moment and in the future. He’s burned out. Even if you did manage to reach him, it’s likely he’d be resentful, even if he didn’t say so. There’s a good chance the sender of the original email will identify with this and respect his time.
I accidentally left my slightly-more-than-professionally-testy “I am out of the office due to a lapse in government funding” voicemail greeting up for a couple months after funding was restored, oops.
Written by Braden Becker @BradenBecker
Try this out with your colleagues or share it with colleagues/clients headed off on a vacation to send them off in style:
You can manually turn on DND mode to auto text, see the video with steps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0jJwjpE87o.
I will be checking email throughout the day and will try to respond to messages promptly (please flag urgent.