Working from home
Do you turn on the out-of-office (OOO) message auto-response in your email system when you travel for business or take vacation time? If you do, people will get something like the following when they email you:
“Thank you for your email. I am out of the office until Tuesday November 13 with limited access to email. If this is urgent, please contact my colleague Fred at fflintstone@mycompany.com.”
The problem with this message is that you’re probably lying. The only people who really have limited access to email these days are people on missionary jaunts up the Amazon River and a guy I know who fishes in Alaska for a couple weeks every year and leaves his cell phone at home.
The out-of-office message is the 2023 equivalent of your mother’s note which got you excused from school on a day that you could have gone in, but didn’t because your mother was too tired to fight with you.
If You Need Assistance, You’re Out of Luck
We need to reconsider the part of out-of-office messages that says “if you need immediate assistance, please contact...”
How many of us have personal assistants to help us handle our business affairs? Very few. Which means the person you’re referring your email sender to is probably a colleague of yours.
Don’t your colleagues already have full-time jobs? Do they really need—or want—to handle your stuff because you’re “out of the office”?
What if they’re out of the office?
The last time I emailed the “immediate assistance” person in an OOO message, the guy had no clue what to do and didn’t even know that he was the contact person. You can guess who he listed as the contact person the next time he was out of the office.
Are You Out of the Office When You’re In Your Home Office?
With so many people working from both home and the “office” these days, it’s worth considering if you’re “out of the office” when you’re working from home. Wakefield Research conducted a study of Americans who work from home, and asked them what they do when they “work” from home. They found that:
- 43% watch TV or a movie
- 26% take naps
- 24% admit to having a drink
- 20% play video games
In other words: People who work from home behave no differently than those who go into the office. As a result, you’re in the office when you’re working from home. Or maybe it means you’re out of the office all the time.
Email is the Problem
Let’s face it: The out-of-office message is simply an excuse for not responding promptly to emails. Personally, I’m thinking of leaving my out-of-office message response on permanently.
Here’s why: The emails we get fall predominantly into four categories, those that: 1) Want us to do something for the sender; 2) Want us to buy something from the sender; 3) Want us to share information with the sender we shouldn’t share; and 4) Provide us with something of value.
By my estimates, less than 1% of the emails I receive are in that fourth category. An out-of-office message buys me time to respond to the endless stream of requests from people who want something from me.
And a quick response to the 1% of emails that deserve a response makes the sender feel special, like I’m interrupting my vacation just to respond to them (it’s so easy to fool people, isn’t it?).
How To Craft Your Out-Of-Office Message
A Harvard Business Review article titled Why You Should Put a Little More Thought Into Your Out-of-Office Message recommended that:
“Sharing a small piece of information about you, your trip, or your company’s product or service can serve to deepen a business relationship or the connection a client feels toward your company.”
Oh, ok. How about this then:
“Thanks for your email. I’m currently attending a conference, so there’s a pretty good chance that when you read this, I’ll be on my sixth glass of scotch and will be in no condition to respond to whatever it is you want from me. Please find another sucker to do your work for you.”
On the other hand, maybe we shouldn’t share small pieces of information.
The author of the HBR article shared a real example of an out-of-office message that her husband used:
“Hi, I’m celebrating 5 years of marriage, as well as enjoying summer vacation with our 4-year-old and 4-month-old. In honor of such a momentous holiday, I will not be checking email until [date].”
I’m pretty sure that if I had received that message, my response would have been:
“Dude, I’ve been married for 35 years and I have 3 grown kids. I know all too well that being away with a 4 year-old and a 4 month-old is no vacation. Tell the family you have an important client that needs an hour of your time, spend two minutes answering my email, and spend the other 58 minutes hiding out at the hotel bar.”
There are many articles available online with suggestions on how to word your OOO message. Many have creative and (somewhat) interesting ideas for what to say in your message.
Whatever you do, though, remember this: The purpose of the OOO message is to set expectations about when you will respond. Most people don’t care what your reasons are for not replying immediately. So keep it short, sweet, and to the point.
And please don’t email me with critiques about why you think I’m wrong about all of this—I’m out of the office.
