I’ve had people inform me that my OOO is up during a period that I was still away. Yea I’m aware my systems are set to send an OOO message, it’s doing its job if you got it.
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I find it rude, as well. If someone is emailing you (the royal you), it’s because they need something. Saying you’re just going to delete it without also giving that person a Plan B contact is totally rude. It sucks having to go through emails, it does. But it’s part of the job. In my role, I get requests from internal colleagues and from external partners. Even though I provide those partners with an alternate email to send their requests, it’s still my responsibility to make sure that the requests that were sent to me in my absence were handled. Saying “everything I’m sent will be deleted” just Would Not Fly in my industry.
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When people leave first name contact only as if we’re supposed to know who Susan or Frank are..
Perhaps I’m you guys’ worst nightmare, but for the past couple of years I’ve been writing haikus for my OOO, which give a flavour of what I’m out doing. A couple of examples:
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.
4. I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. 5. You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I …
Unfortunately, I’m going to have to return your message. As it’s the holiday season, I’m currently away from the office. When I return, I’ll give your email a good solid read and find that your request is exactly what I needed after all! But until then, I’m going to keep it in the inbox so it doesn’t get damaged and revisit it after the holidays are over.
My favorite thing is setting my OOO to only run for a specific amount of time. I will absolutely forget to turn it off if I have to do it manually, but we can just set a date/time range for it to start/stop. So I usually start it around 4 pm the day before and end it at 7 or 8pm the night before I return.
Written by Braden Becker @BradenBecker
I have a message saying I don’t listen to voice mail, because I only see that a message has been left after several days. No idea why the lag, it’s been the same despite going through two phones and two operators. There are always other ways to contact me. Last time I got voicemail it was the police, the officer was calling from a landline so he couldn’t text. Luckily it wasn’t urgent (he needed a witness statement, but I hadn’t witnessed anything of interest to the court).
I mean, this is what I pretty much did upon returning from my maternity leaves but I would never put it into an email! My maternity leave OOO was the vague “I am on extended leave and am not anticipated to return until X. Please contact Joe or Fergus in my absence.” X being a vague time-frame based on my due date and the length of my leave. No one is waiting 3+ months for an answer so I did get to delete most of the 500 emails I got during my most recent leave! I did once have someone internal tell me I should say maternity leave rather than leave, but really, what does it matter? I’m gone for a few months and no one outside of the company really NEEDS to know why.
Going back to how some people can’t ever switch off, this person went above and beyond for their auto-email with a humorous graph that very accurately shows the highs and lows of stress levels before, during and after time away.
Ha – I didn’t watch the video but still definitely get the condescension! It’s a LOT of extra explaining and direction when something like, “if you need immediate assistance, please contact Fergus at…” will do. In my opinion, cutesy stuff like this is mildly entertaining at the beginning but gets dumb/annoying shortly thereafter. Not just with OOO messages, but other instances where companies try to make being “cool/funny/laid back” parts of their brand in really obvious ways.
Anyone who communicates digitally needs to set up ooms conversely, if you are out for just a day, your contact could reasonably expect a response i am out of the office for the thanksgiving week: