So you may be back in school but a vacation is likely right around the corner. Rather than throw up a typical ‘out of office’ reply on your e-mail, get a bit creative! Instead of the usual ‘I’ll have limited access to e-mail and will try my best to help you even though i’m on vacation’ nonsense, don’t mince words.
Like Josh Kopelman did in his e-mail. Here’s what his vacation auto-reply says:
I am currently out of the office on vacation.
I know I’m supposed to say that I’ll have limited access to email and won’t be able to respond until I return – but that’s not true. My blackberry will be with me and I can respond if I need to. And I recognize that I’ll probably need to interrupt my vacation from time to time to deal with something urgent.
That said, I promised my wife that I am going to try to disconnect, get away and enjoy our vacation as much as possible. So, I’m going to experiment with something new. I’m going to leave the decision in your hands:
• If your email truly is urgent and you need a response while I’m on vacation, please resend it to interruptyourvacation@firstround.com and I’ll try to respond to it promptly.
• If you think someone else at First Round Capital might be able to help you, feel free to email my assistant, Fiona (fiona@firstround.com) and she’ll try to point you in the right direction.Otherwise, I’ll respond when I return…
Warm regards,
Josh
Simply tailor a similar message to your job / needs and it’s sure to get you fired put a smile on someone’s face. Enjoy!
Source: Feld Thoughts