Thank you for you email. I am out of the office from [insert date] until [insert date]. If you have an urgent request, please contact [insert name] at [insert email].
Here’s my OOO nightmare: when I was a graduate intern a few years ago, there was a volunteer with severe, marginally treated mental health concerns. Her behavior toward me was inappropriate to the point that my school assisted me with a safety plan. I obviously blocked her on everything I could think of. Unfortunately while I was on winter break she emailed my agency address from an account no one knew about, got my OOO message, assumed it meant I was open to communicating again, and proceeded to have a monthlong meltdown in my inbox when I didn’t respond. To this day I am grateful for my city’s utter lack of public transit, which prevented her from trying to find my home and family.
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Education Details: Joshua Kim. January 15, 2020. Hello. I am on vacation between now and Jan. 13 and will not be checking email. Please resend your email on or after Jan. 13. Thanks, Josh. That was the out-of-office (OOO) message that I set on my work email the last time I went on vacation.
On behalf of all people who have trouble typing on the miniature keyboards, my apologies :)
I do this because my industry’s norm is that people check their email on vacation, at least once or twice, but I don’t do it. I don’t have work email on my phone so it’s technically true.
My new job provided a template OOO as part of the onboarding brand templates package! I’m sure it might seem like overkill to some, but I’ve had tons of nervous first-job employees ask me what theirs should say, so I loved that they just gave a sample to go from. Also goes a long way in communicating that unique office culture stuff that is usually unspoken/not formalized.
Hello! Our office will remain closed from [date] to [date] for [holiday]. We promise to answer all emails as soon as we return to the office. Thank you!
That said, I promised my wife that I am going to try to disconnect, get away and enjoy our vacation as much as possible. So, I’m going to experiment with something new. I’m going to leave the decision in your hands:
Set your out of office messages and determine who monitors division and department messages.
Oh hey, it’s Christmas, what are you doing emailing me? I’m extremely busy watching Home Alone, Die Hard, and the 1994 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Christmas Special on repeat until the new year. I might stop for food and toilet breaks, I also might now. Regardless of my general health and hygience over the silly season, I’ll be back in office on January 2nd. Catch ya then, don’t forget to buy a pepperoni pizza for Splinter.
Thanks for getting in touch. I am currently out of the office from [date] to [date] and will have limited access to my email during this time. You may be able to get ahold of me on my cell phone at [phone number]. If you can’t get through to me and have an urgent inquiry, you can contact a member of the team at [phone number], or my assistant [Name] at [email] or [phone number].
Coworkers, clients, and subscribers typically expect fast responses and solutions to their problems, particularly from people working in customer service, marketing, and communications jobs. Out of office messages provide them with a polite, concise, and professional explanation of why you cannot respond right away. You can provide an OOO message if you are gone for one day, one week, or several months.
My OOO auto reply is fairly detailed. I have links to information for products I work with, an alternate point of contact for people to approach, etc. It’s really a CYA thing. What irks me about some OOO auto replies is when the person who is out has an alternate point of contact who is also out. Both are obvious planned absences, and both people are on the same team. Don’t they talk to one another about vacation??
For those of you arguing that entrepreneurs and salespeople must always be available, I present to you Exhibit A. While this is specific to Yesware (and you should check out their other OOO examples), it's easy enough to tweak to fit your industry.
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Yeah, that’s not enough to stress over. Try coming back to tens of thousands after parental leave.
If you have Chat enabled in Gmail, you will also see their out of office status when you send a direct message. If someone doesn't have permission to view your out of office event, Gmail won't show you're out of office. Share your out of office status.