Do you get sick of reading the same old auto-responders from co-workers who are out of the office? I sure do.
When I go away for more than a few days, I tend to set up an auto-responder that's slightly less boring that the normal "I'm out of office with occasional access to email until ..."
I just configured mine, since I'll be elsewhere for the next few days:
I'm out of office for the ritual slaughter of turkey and will have only occasional access to email. You have been warned. :-)
Now, I fully admit that these may be amusing only to me. But that's never really stopped me from trying. Being able to amuse yourself is sometimes the only way to stay sane.
I've found that it's best to keep 'em short, otherwise nobody will read it all the way to the end.
Do you use a non-standard message to notify people of your absence via email? If so, what is it? Or what's the best one you've seen?
Posted by jzawodn at November 21, 2006 01:51 PM
Here's one i left a couple months ago, parodying the often ridiculous lists of names that helpless emailers should contact in your absence:
-----------------
I will be out of the office on Tuesday, Sept 26. And possibly Wednesday, Sept 27. ...and maybe Thursday too.
If you have questions about , contact .
If you have an emergency, dial 911.
If you wish to speak to an operator, press or say 'zero'.
If you want to save a lot of money on your car insurance, contact GEICO.
If you have information which may lead to an arrest in the murder case of Jon Benet Ramsey, contact the Colorado Springs Sheriff's Department.
If you know the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden or other known terrorists, contact the United States Department of Defense.
If you know who shot J.R., contact the Dallas Police Department.
If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, call .... The A-Team.
For all other questions, wait 'till I return on Wednesday or Thursday, or Friday.
----------------------
Full disclosure - inspiration taken from Raymond Chen
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/11/595351.aspx
Here's one i left a couple months ago, parodying the often ridiculous lists of names that helpless emailers should contact in your absence:
-----------------
I will be out of the office on Tuesday, Sept 26. And possibly Wednesday, Sept 27. ...and maybe Thursday too.
If you have questions about , contact .
If you have an emergency, dial 911.
If you wish to speak to an operator, press or say 'zero'.
If you want to save a lot of money on your car insurance, contact GEICO.
If you have information which may lead to an arrest in the murder case of Jon Benet Ramsey, contact the Colorado Springs Sheriff's Department.
If you know the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden or other known terrorists, contact the United States Department of Defense.
If you know who shot J.R., contact the Dallas Police Department.
If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, call .... The A-Team.
For all other questions, wait 'till I return on Wednesday or Thursday, or Friday.
----------------------
Full disclosure - inspiration taken from Raymond Chen
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/11/595351.aspx
I stopped setting vacation auto-responders at work when I realized that the Exchange admins hadn't configured them to only go to internal addresses.
Ah, you're among the Exchange afflicted.
Sorry to hear that. :-(
I just don't reply to emails when I am working, so that when I'm on vacation nobody notices.
I too am Exchange-afflicted, and I don't set a vacation auto-responder at work because the Exchange admins apparently haven't configured them to not respond to mailing lists.
Now I *love* Thanksgiving, but wow, you actually ritually slaughter your turkey? For a suburban guy, that's pretty hard-core.
I got this funny one from my previous office.
I forgot the exact words, but it's something like this:
"I'm sorry, I can't reply right now. I'm not away but I'm just hiding from someone, pretending I'm away. If it's not you I'm running away from, I'll reply your email."
Just a background info: When we activate our 'Away' status, we still get to receive the incoming emails. Not sure if tht's the same thing for every company though.
http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/21041
check for geocities and broadcast.com
http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/21033
read this??
What is yahoo doing..seroiously..
I am not blaming u..but as one of the most outspoken bloggers I request your opinion
Man introduce a captha to prevent spam not this confirmation thing u have been doing what yahoo exactly is doing..
prevent users from doing something..
I don't set an autoresponder. It's not because of exchange (I don't use exchange, though I've had a ticket open for two years on that issue). It's because I don't really care to let people know that I'm not around to answer. It's nice for them to think that I'm just ignoring them, and wait for them to escalate the issue to my manager. My manager generally lets them know that I'm OoO.
This is what I decided to go with this year:
I am currently traveling backwards in time to try to prevent you from sending the e-mail message you just sent me. If you are reading this, I have apparently failed.
No worries. There's a chance that the world won't blow up afterall. It is only one little e-mail, right?
I should return to the present on or about November 28th. Given the vagaries of time travel, I may have limited access to email and but you still may be able to reach me on my cell phone (XXX-XXX-XXXX) as long as I don't travel back beyond the year 2000.
Wish me luck!
EGM
I always just write that I won't be checking work email, but if they REALLY need to get ahold of me, they can try writing my other address:
YouAreInterruptingMeOnMyVacation@
In the amount of time it takes them to write that out, hopefully they've thought twice about it...
Seth Godin had a good post 18 months or so ago:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/04/so_a_rabbi_a_pr.html
Nope, but I do set fake "this e-mail has been scanned for viruses" messages in my personal web mail e-mail signature. Yup, amusing mainly for myself:
The current one reads:
******************************************
pauldwaite.co.uk has swept this email
message for computer viruses.
Please be aware, however, that we did not
sweep it for biological viruses. Whilst
there's probably no reason for alarm, the
fact remains that YOU MAY CATCH BOTULISM
FROM THIS E-MAIL.
If you do catch botulism from this e-mail,
pauldwaite can accept no responsibility,
but sincerely hopes you get well soon.
******************************************
Im helping Michale bay in shooting his Transformers 3 set to release on July 1st, 2009. No worries, I will be back soon, may be next year.
