I like funny OOO – but I am a bad offender regarding these and may slightly overshare. I recently had to be in and out for eye surgery and this was mine:
An out of office message could become an opportunity to connect with your client on a more personal level. Consider sharing something about yourself that they might not have known about while working with you.
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As a result, our text-based work communication has morphed into a series of strange, stilted, passive aggressive, and performatively upbeat exchanges. Much of the actual text of work email exchanges is ornamental filler language filled with exclamation points and phrases like “just looping back on this” that mask burnout, frustrated obligation, and sometimes outright contempt (the absolute best example of this is a wonderful 2015 post titled, “Just Checking In,” where writers Virginia Heffernan and Paul Ford write fake emails in this vein to see who can cause the other the most panic).
I do that for most cases. Occasionally I’ll change it to “I’m out of the country and will not have phone or email access.”
“I’m offline and have sporadic access to email until X date. For urgent matters contact Colleagues A and B. For true work related emergencies you can call me at Cell Number”
Of course, managing a minute and a half response time isn’t so easily accomplished when you’re out of office, receiving hundreds of texts each hour, or shifting your attention to a different project.
Going beyond being formal and functional with your messages, you can also add a note of festive mood to your email if you feel like being creative. To this purpose, you can adopt a lighter tone, while referencing the holiday in question.
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I’ll be out of the office on vacation for the next week. I will probably see your message because I don’t know how to relax and will likely respond if I feel that I need to help in any way. Otherwise, I’ll get back to you when I return. Thanks! If you don’t feel like adding to my workload, please contact [name] at [email] or [phone] in the meantime.
Thanks so much for your email. I’ve decided to take advantage of the holiday weekend and truly take [Monday/Friday] off. In an effort to come back fully recharged, I won’t be checking my email. Don’t worry though, if it’s urgent, you can reach out to [name] at [email address].
I’m tempted to make out a “SUPER DUPER HELPFUL COWORKER” certificate to hand to them.
That said, be careful with messages that are this curt. Make sure you’re familiar enough with your audience — and your boss, for that matter — to know that this sort of out-of-office message will be met with a snicker, and not with annoyance.
Popular Trending About Us Asked by: Miesha Mrabet technology and computing email How do you put an out of office message on a public holiday?
Hello! Please note: [date] through [date] are holiday days for our employees. Our office will be closed and because of this there will likely be a delay in responding to your email until [date] when most of our team returns.
The ThreeMail Workflow Flowchart: A flowchart that illustrates the steps behind building your own ThreeMail setup modelling it after my TimeCrafting methodology.5 Time-Saving Email Templates: These canned responses will help you respond to senders faster.
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I might be your coworker. I don’t get a lot of calls so it slips my mind constantly. Email I just set up a timer and it’s so much easier that way.