The art of the Out of Office message

Dear Readers, the Out of Office message is such a fraught event! Drayton and I - at the Archdruid's express and slightly threatening instruction - are off to Spring Harvest tomorrow. A week away from the Community - unless, of course, Drayton gets into all the trouble he did a few years ago, when he picketed a Celtic Worship Celebration on the grounds that it wasn't really Celtic, he didn't think it was proper worship, and he wasn't celebrating.

So with only 24 hours until we set off I'm putting some serious effort into ensuring that I put on the right Out of Office message. The tone of the message is so important, don't you think? For example, Albert my old boss used to use the following:

"I will be out of office from 19.44 on the 21 April until 05:32 on the 26 April. However since this means I won't be in any meetings, and will be on the beach or in a bar with nothing to do, I will be responding to emails more promptly than normal. If you need an urgent response, please do not contact anyone in my team.  I wouldn't let them deal with anything important in my presence and would rather they didn't in my absence either."

You see the subtle message there - firstly the dedication to clearing up everything outstanding before he left, and hitting the ground running when he got back. Then the subtle inference that the team aren't much use, and he alone is the one keeping the show on the road. He had even more time to himself after his wife fell in love with a Cypriot waiter while Albert was on a particularly long conference call, and she refused to come back to England in time for the 26 April.

I tried this type of message last time I went for a train-spotting holiday in Cuba, but my implication that the Community would go to rack and ruin if I wasn't there was spotted by the Archdruid. She got Young Keith to hack my account and changed my out of office message to:

"I am currently out of the office on a rather boring old train with a bunch of vile accountants. Especially Roger, who's the most obnoxious man I've ever met. If you need any urgent assistance, please contact Hnaef who at least knows the difference between his bottom and the people who made "Build a rocket, boys". In fact, this applies when I am in the office as well."

I've generally found it safer since then not to take holidays. And Roger poured his lager shandy-and-black over my head when he checked his blackberry.