Your Out of Office Message Sucks
Email, the Introverts Telephone
Tip 1# Stop writing boring shit
Current and former colleagues and customers ask if I am doing my traditional Out of Office for the end of 2021.
That’s right, my Out of Office message has become a thing, where people will send me an email knowing I am on leave (Annual Leave or Paid Time Off depending on the side of the corporate jargon fence you are on) so that they can get mine out of office message.
I cannot remember when this started, I believe it was sometime around 2014 or 2015, and I had become a little daring in the way I approached my work, less vanilla Debbie Downer what everyone else was doing and more me.
Youtube is my medium, and during the year I watch videos every day, funny, informative, mind-blowing and slowly collate my favourites throughout the year and come to the end of the calendar year as everyone is about to sojourn into Christmas break and more debt.
I put together my top 10–15 videos and with some comments about each video, but this is the body of the message; I have an intro or headline to the Out of Office. At the bottom of the Out of Office message, resides the business information. Who to contact in my absence and other details which might be relevant.
My greatest regret is not saving copies of the previous OOO messages which I created at my previous employer. My current employer has only just experienced “Full Rocket OOO” in 2020, so looking forward to the reactions for 2021.
Why do I go to all this trouble? How else can the Introvert in an Extrovert world express yourself.
Phones are not the best friends of introverts — at least not the part that involves speaking to humans. Email, texting, social media and even video — that we can handle. — Megan Telpner
You will have noticed through my other articles if you have read them. If not, please finish this one first, give me a clap on Medium, share the article and subscribe to my mail list.
What you will have seen is a theme of personal AH-HA moments, which have helped pull me from the fog through the forest and into the field where I am finally able to see all around me.
The out-of-office message was another one of those clicks and collect moments that I have become fully appreciative and embracing in my work and personal life.
I don’t know about you, but it’s hard to see how you tick; what are the secret codes to your superpowers are.
What appears to be just lightning in a bottle, fleeting moments of high energy, happiness, and working on a problem, task, or project that feels like you have ideas flowing through your fingers and oozing out of every muscle.
The opposite is true with how it feels when you try and capture lightning in the bottle, and you get struck by lightning. Was it something you said (most likely), as introverts can be blunt information instruments, like a slip n slide without the soap or water.
Introverts would prefer to go forth without the lube and instead discuss how people can call themselves ethical vegans and at the same time support GMO soy production — Megan Telpner
The more you learn about yourself, the prettier the reflection of yourself is in the mirror. Because you will see you for you, and go and do you.
I always like to refer to myself as the “King of Useless Information”. I will collect post-it notes in my brain of information passing through during my lifetime as I ask why, how and the what.
Be open to having your views and opinions eviscerated by someone else with Jedi like knowledge on a subject you were waving a protest banner around.
“Our opinions are like windows; over time, they get a build-up of dirt and grime and become hard to see through. They just need a good clean now and then to be able to see again” — Unknown Author.
Inside this journey of knowledge acquisition and ego-bruising, you will find awareness of yourself, your thinking, your motivation, your inner music sheet, and how you communicate with the world.
This same journey doesn’t have a rule book, except for one. Start learning, and don’t stop.
There are no rules, no guidelines, No Five steps for a sure-fire way to 1000 wow moments in your life. Just start and don’t stop.
Okay, Okay, I will offer up an example from myself.
I started writing on medium, as I certainly wasn’t planning on writing blogs and becoming a “blogger”.
Remember, as I mentioned at the beginning of this, I am a big Youtube consumer, as it forms the foundation of the Out of Office thing.
Day 1 is I watched a Tim Ferris Video, “How to Use Your Phone… So That It Doesn’t Use You” which inspired me to change some of my phone habits, especially social media. I already have all the notifications turned off, and even my work email notifications have already turned off, which has not impacted my daily production. And my phone is also on silent most of the time.
I have deleted social media apps from my phone Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which I spoke about in my piece “Facebook announced a rebrand, I am here to announce 13 weeks of Social Media sobriety”.
As a curious mind, I thought, now I need something else to help me work through some of the boredom I know I will experience and ensure I do not fall back into the venomous traps, especially Facebook and Instagram.
So I returned the Tim Ferriss well and found this gem “How I Journal and Take Notes | Brainstorming + Focusing + Reducing Anxiety” which then had me going to Amazon and ordering multiple moleskin books of different sizes and colours. They all had to be grid (no plain or ruled page ones).
I have multiple books, a pocketbook for small random ideas, two A5 notebooks for “Career Development”, and the other was “Current Job Ideas, Actions and Notes”. The 3rd is a large A4 book for my more significant ideas or the canvas to whiteboard/storyboard my thoughts.
I write in the A4 and Pocketbook in pencil; there is something that allows me to tap into that child’s mind when using a pencil and eraser. I wrote in these also with the orange pen if I want to make a permit note/reminder.
I use a pen (blue, red, black and orange) for all my notes in the other books. And don’t be shy about spending good money on a pen that writes smooth, you will thank me later.
I also took up “Morning Pages”, which I did for about three weeks until I read a medium article by Tim Denning “, When You Face a Huge Problem, Write Your Way Beyond It”
Tim’s view on journaling was you are wasting your words and ideas, and you should be using them differently and giving unique reason’s why.
And this is what has led me to write and publish on Medium.
A little bit of a TIM theme going on here, will have a coffee and a Tim Tam and ponder what it means;o)
If you have read to THIS point, I applaud you.
Don’t be concerned that you have gotten to this point and thinking, “How in blue blazes is this about crap Out of Office Messages” when you have been reading about my journey to writing on Medium.
I apologise for my non-linear writing in this article because each topic I wrote about sparked a new conversation and discovery about myself over the years. I am sharing it in one piece.
I struggle with grammar, and I battle with structure. I am a mild dyslexic who has learnt to explore, test and fail more, embraced more about myself and use what people consider flaws as my superpowers; I think you should too.
Remember “Perfect is the Enemy of Good”
I stopped trying to be someone else. It’s why my end of year Out of Office messages are memorable.
