Pretentious out of office reply

[beebreath]

My out of office is usually

I'm on annual leave please contact ...

Or

I'm out of office until date. If urgent please contact (name )

There is someone in another department to me who really annoys me with

I am attending ' names very important meeting or convention ' please contact ...

Why say which 'important ' meeting you are ? I just see this is pretentious bullshit or is it me ?

Oh gosh, I've written that i am at a conference in my OOO. I didn't realise people would think I was being pretentious. I did it to show that I was working that week, so available if needed by email or over the phone. If I just said I'm out of the office, people might assume that I was on annual leave and that it would be inappropriate to call me.

I also work part time and sometimes from home and when I am working (including at a conference) I want to make it clear that I am working, not larking about. Flexibility is a rare and fragile thing in my office so I find it helps to be clear about where I am and what I am doing.

I don't see how you could be annoyed at it. Presumably they want to make it clear they're at a work event not just off on holiday and could be reached if urgent.

@mnxnt42 MIPIM!! Oh yes! I did 3 tours myself as a designer! YANBU!!! Whole town full of Estate Agents!!*. And in France.... buff said!

I do love *EA... kinda.... but not in herds...

@LtGreggs I worked 8-7 most days, and often at least one day at the weekend. The reason they all needed actioned was because we had a really stupid system that didn't link up with our emails so we had to copy and paste every email into the relevant case file, even if it was for info only. Also our productivity was tracked with points and we'd get points for each email so you had to copy them all in. So it didn't take very long for the vast majority of them - certainly not a full minute.

It was a RIDICULOUS job and there's a reason I don't work there any more!

The wankiest ooo from one of our consultants. "I'm currently nestled in a cottage in the lake District writing my new novel

'nestled in a cottage' - as a novelist, her OOO is not the best advert for her own prose.

I wonder whether the person who said that they were on unpaid leave has an office culture where you are expected to reply to email even if you are on holiday? So by mentioning that it is unpaid means that she can't be expected to work.

I think a while ago someone on here had a colleague who had a policy of deleting all emails received outside of office hours. This sounds like a great idea except that she was in a different time zone and therefore couldn't contact him. I have no idea whether that was resolved.

I always think the ones that say “I’m away and will be deleting all emails unread on my return” are rather shitty. I might be from the Lottery telling you you’ve won £400 million for all you know.

The "I'm going to delete them all" is annoying because to me it says they're incapable of managing their workload and the onus is on you to remember when they are back.

I've a colleague who loves doing the back from holiday 100s of emails to get through thing. I once watched her in a meeting after she'd come back from holiday painstakingly going through all her emails reading them one by one re-marking some of them as unread!!!

There's a middle ground between deleting the emails you've received in your absence en masse, and going through all of them meticulously.

If I'm away for more than a week I put an OOO on giving alternative contacts and asking people to email me again when I'm back if still needed. I don't actually say that I will delete all emails.

I then skim-read them on my return and delete everything non-critical, however if I find anything that seems really important I will reply and check that it's been dealt with.

We also have someone who has automatic replied to all emails, whether they are in office or not, saying "I have automatic deletion setup for all emails I am cc in. I will only respond to emails sent directly to me.

I dream of being so high up the chain that I can get away with this. A lot of the academics in my uni do it but I am lowly admin so would never get away with it.

If I had an honest OOO it would say:

I'm out of the office until X date. If your email is urgent, please email Y who will fob you off until I return.

Maybe I should be more explicit in my OOO?

"Hi, I am out of the office on leave, stuffing my face with food, drinking wine and happily settled in front of Netflix. I'll be back on X date and will respond then."

My big boss, so two managers up, used to be my line manager but pulled a few strings got promoted. Insists on forwarding emails which are sent to me but with him cc'd in

He's only ever cc'd in as the sender is covering their arse and I always reply 'don't panic, already sorted!' Does my head in!

We have an ongoing row in our office about out of office messages because one of our senior management “doesn’t believe in them”. She believes we truly should be contactable by our clients 24/7/365.

What a tosser. I suppose she doesn't believe in your entitlement to 28 days paid leave a year, as she expects you to work 365 days a year? And I hope your salary doesn't fall below min wage when it's divided by 24/365.

Some people seem to think that a contract of employment means they own you body and soul. Dreadful attitude.

The day I left my job I auto redirected all my work email & diverted my phone to the person in the office who had made my life a living hell for over 10 years & left her to clear up all the shit she had caused.

we have internal and external ooo.
internal just says 'away returning on xxx, for urgent matters contact yyy'
the external is similar, just with full sentences

For our external messages we aren't allowed to put in where we are going or our date of return. Apparently it would give too much info to someone trying to hack into the system with our credentials. ???

I also say in my OOO if I'm at a conference or on annual leave because I think it helps manage expectations? Conference means I'll be checking my emails but it will take me longer to respond to non-urgent ones. Annual leave means I definitely will not read or respond to your email until I'm back in the office.

I love this thread!!! Am on a PT contract but get bombarded with emails asking for extra things on days I’m not there... I’m considering setting up an OOO to remind them I’m busy doing other stuff when not there... what do you think?