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We had someone at my old job whose auto-reply stated that they were at a “White Privilege Conference”. Granted, the conference was about dismantling White Privilege, but to someone outside our work who didn’t know that, I imagine that got quite the reaction!
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If you’re off to have fun on your vacation, you might as well have some fun in your OOO message! And hey, you might inspire someone else to start planning their next holiday.
At one point I considered whether I should advise our freelance writers to warn all their relatives that their lives would be at risk around the time of the writer’s deadline.
An easy win here is to be specific about your out-of-office dates, or to be upbeat about why you are out of office.
I don’t think it’s condescending, but I do find it annoying. I have a coworker who sometimes writes emails in this tone of voice, and it’s honestly way too much.
Hi and thank you for your message. I’ll be out of the office on [DATE]. Please contact my manager, [EMAIL] for assistance.
Education Details: Keep your “Out of Office” reply short and simple. Here’s an example “Out of Office” message you can use: Subject line — Out of office: Hello, Thanks for your email. I am out of the
Doesn’t work when phone is off or out of range, does it? I’m a small business owner but I am often driving in out of range areas and will be traveling for a week with no signal most of the time. Considering leaving my phone plugged in at home just so it can send the auto replies. Still no fix though for the hours spent outside sms land every week.
There’s a grim, apologetic vibe to these messages — I’m sorry I’m taking time for myself but I’ll try to check in on occasion! They’re a vivid reflection of a work culture that valorizes constant productivity and the near-total overlap of work and life. But they’re also do a terrible job of what they’re intended to do, e.g., set realistic expectations for both sender and recipient. A vague OOO message traps both parties in an uncomfortable liminal space where both productivity and rest go to die. The original sender is left unsure if they’ll be getting a timely response or a whether the email will go ignored for a time or forever. The original recipient has taken what is a rock solid excuse (time off) and cheapened it, offering a backdoor for email guilt to creep in.
Or they work with one or more of those people that call you 5 minutes after sending an email if you don’t reply.
The problem was that this had to be done on deadline and people wanted me to do other things for them that weren’t time sensitive. So I put up an internal-only out of office that basically said “hey sorry I’m working on project X and we have a tight deadline. If this isn’t urgent I’ll get back to you next week. If it is urgent, let me know!”
I no longer work at this company due to the misalignment with advertised company values and actual practice.
The email I send out always says something along the lines of “I’ll be away Thursday and Friday, so if you need anything from me, please let me know before noon on Wednesday. Thanks!”
Merry Christmas and thanks for your email! I’m taking a few days off to spend time with my family and friends, so I won’t be answering emails as quickly as usual. You can expect to hear back from me by (insert date). Hope you have a Merry Christmas!
An old boss had a pet peeve about this so I became very conscious of making sure that I listed out who to contact on what day… before the group email. So it looked something like this:
Thanks for your email. I am on leave on 4th January 2021. I will revert to you once I’m back to work on 5th January 2021.