I agree that the reasons are not relevant. But at my last company, a coworker had overly short out of office messages. Examples: “out of office today.” Or “out of office until Monday.” With no additional information about coverage, etc. Those always felt overly curt to me and made me wonder, is this person okay? Was this OOO planned or are they on the verge of a mental breakdown? (It was a very toxic culture so this wasn’t out of the question). I would be curious to hear others perspectives on this. Is too little information just as bad?
How about a little retro concrete poetry – you know, where you arrange your words on the screen to form an image of a palm tree or a pina colada?
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Thank you for your message. I am currently out of the store on holidays, with no access to email. I will be returning on (insert date).
Hello, our office will remain closed for during the Christmas period. We assure you that all your emails will be responded to as soon as we return to the office. Merry Christmas! Regards, [Name/Company name]
“The world is serious enough as it is - people need, and usually appreciate, an unexpected moment of levity in their day,” he says, when quizzed about how recipients might respond to such an OOO. He also confides that he himself has dispensed with auto responses altogether – though not for idealistic reasons. “The last time I tried to set one up, I botched it so badly that somehow it resent every single email in my outbox from the previous year - client emails, firing notices, literally thousands of emails.”
› Url: https://www.roberthalf.com/blog/salaries-and-skills/vacation-time-how-to-craft-an-effective-out-of-office-message Go Now
A. Yes; however, Rocket Wireless will have very limited hours during winter break, with no in-person hours. Please call Rocket Wireless at 419.530.4807 or send an email; responses will be made only during half of the day (or two) after Christmas Day.
Purchasing and receiving for The University of Toledo Medical Center and clinics will run operations as usual during winter break, with no interruption to service.
If you super, duper need to contact me, you can find me on Facebook or Twitter and use the hashtag #I’mGonnaRuinYourVacation
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).
Soldiers of the 353rd Infantry near a church at Stenay, Meuse in France, wait for the end of hostilities. This photo was taken at 10:58 a.m., on November 11, 1918, two minutes before the armistice ending World War I went into effect
I am currently on my annual leave and will return to the office on *date*. If your request is urgent, please contact my colleague *name* at *email* or *phone*.
I know I’m so late on this, but my FAVORITE one I’ve ever gotten was from one of my company’s Presidents (so a very high up muckity muck type).
Huh. This is a rare column from you that I disagree with almost entirely. I guess to start with what I think you get right, there's no need to apologize for being out of office, and no one should feel obligated to deal with anything other than a legitimate emergency (which are, in most fields, truly rare) while on vacation or while taking time off.
Which is why the workers who do have the ability, whether through place within the hierarchy or company culture, should not squander it. In fact, they should recognize the OOO as an opportunity to model and normalize organizational or even industry-wide guardrails (as opposed to bullshit feebly-maintained ‘boundaries’). It’s why, starting this summer, we need to embrace the blunt, descriptive OOO message.
While not QUITE as annoying as “Have a great day!” there are several people/departments who use an auto reply for the most frequently asked questions or information for their department…something along the line of an IT auto response that says: “To submit an IT request or check for an updated status on a request, please visit request.business.com”
Who doesn’t love a bit of decoding? Why use basic words, when a broad range of emojis can spell out exactly what you want to say, but in a much more interactive and fun way?