best out of office message youve seen

[SirQuintusAureliusMaximus]

this is quality and I'm in awe of the bravery.

I am out of the office until Wednesday 3rd January 2024 and will have little / no interest in work during that time. In my absence please contact my colleague [name].

Mine is my DHs.

He puts that he is on holiday, and that if anyone wants to talk to him, they will have to go through his wife.

Funnily enough, we never have calls.

We aren’t allowed to have amusing ones sadly

I know a few people who have one that says something along the lines of all emails will be deleted so if it's important, re-send it in January.

All emails will be deleted to preserve my mental health. Amazing, we should all do it!

Maybe I'm a grump, but all I want to know is your return date and who to contact in your absence. I find the "funny" ones tiresome.

I saw one once that was basically like ‘I’m on holiday now as my better half said I had to be and she is an amazing wife and I’m a lucky guy so , speak to you later ‘ 🤣

Mine says:

"I am on maternity leave and not back at work until 2025. Yes, 2025! Please contact X in my absence because I will definitely not be able to answer your queries in a timely manner".

We would definitely not be allowed to put anything funny in our OOO messages.
The most I can say is that I am out of the office now until x date and I will not be looking at my emails before then, so please contact y if you need an urgent response.

We have a tradition at work of (very carefully and double checked!) a professional company standard external out of office and a very unprofessional internal out of office, the sillier the better.

Mine is often 'you're all dead to me, until the 15th'.

I’ve only seen this once (not at Xmas) and found it astoundingly unprofessional. By all means don’t ready or respond to my email before your return from holiday. But pushing something back into my to do list of remembering when you are returning from holiday and then resending after that, rather than just sitting in your inbox, is inappropriate.

The person I knew who sent that? Didn’t last in role. I’m not surprised if they took that attitude into their general work.

We're just:

I am out of school until 8th of January.

No forwarding contact as school is closed.

Unfortunately my password has expired so I can check them.

I had a boss that came back from a month of paternity leave, logged into his email and highlighted every message that he’d received during his absence and immediately hit delete without so much of a skim read.

I was like WTF are you doing?! And he shrugged his shoulders and said “People would’ve got my out of office directing them to you for any queries. If they didn’t bother getting on to you it can’t be that urgent.”

It was an interesting approach.

@FirstFallopians I bet it worked though. Unless your job is time critical like a brain surgeon, for most office jobs its probably true that if its urgent or matters people will chase up or contact the right person.

I once worked in an office and at Christmas had the following from a client:

"Thank you for your email. I am out of the office, most likely having an agreeable lunch somewhere and will respond to messages on my return"

😁

That sounds exactly like what a beloved ex-colleague (now retired) of mine would have as his OOO

@FirstFallopians I actually agree with that approach. If you do otherwise, you are probably going to have to work additional hours to catch up and process all
emails on return.

Ooops, pretty sure I forgot to do mine. Oh well.

There has just been a restructure at work and some have "left the business".

The Support Manager put one on that read:

"Thanks for your email. I'm currently out of the office for Christmas, with no access to email.

I won't be reading or responding to your email, as the fuckers have made me redundant."

It was spotted after quite a few customers got in touch, as a couple of application servers were down and this person was a point of contact for them out of hours.

I saw one from a colleague recently, it was something along the lines of "I'm on holiday until X date. I might return, I might not, either way don't hold your breath as you'll go purple". I was a bit astounded, I don't know if we have a rule for OOO messages but I'd never seen one more exciting than "I'm on annual leave, for urgent queries contact X"

@FirstFallopians the last time I had some extended leave I did exactly the same. No comeback and much less stressful. I reckon half of them had forgotten they had emailed me.

It's not an interesting approach it's how emails (when ooo of more than a few days) should be dealt with.

Mines says

I'm out the office until x. If your email is urgent forward you email to y.

All emails will be deleted on my return.

Thanks

I have an ooo so contact them 🤷‍♀️

That's just rude. I'm surprised he wasn't told to change it.

Completely agree. I don't want to see your personality shine, I just want a response to my query or to know who to speak to in your absence. The ones on this thread about the wives are just cringey.

There are people in my organisation who just put 'i am out of office with no access to email' - so infuriating! No return date and no alternative point of contact

Love the idea of having a fun OOO for coworkers only. Would not particularly appreciate receiving cheeky ones asking to resend messages after a certain date.
On the other hand if I got a "the fuckers have made me redundant" one i would want to buy the sender a drink.

My only funny OOO was about 20 years ago now.... I took a day off to go to the city and get a copy of a Harry potter book the day it became available in stores
I wished whoever read a very haRRy day!

Would be really frowned upon where I work. We’re expected to be professional and courteous to both internal and external clients. If I received a ‘humorous’ OOO when I was e mailing someone, I’d judge them professionally once they were back.