How is your OOF?
My pal Ewan Dalton wrote a post on the etymology of the OOF way back in 2004 on the Exchange blog. He explains that OOF was a command used in the days of Microsoft’s Xenix mail system, which set a user as ‘Out of Facility’ - i.e. Out of the Office.
The OOF is a very common tool of business and more often than not, you see a fairly common set of OOF’s Something like “I’m out til Wednesday and will reply when I’m back”. Some are more verbose, others less so but generally speaking the OOF is deleted as fast as a user sees it.
I think the humble OOF deserves better though and about 8 years ago I was working with a Microsoftie by the name of Ian Ferrell. He has something of a thing for unusual OOF’s and I decided to take on the same approach - since then have always spent time crafting my OOF to make it fun, unusual, descriptive, and always with the aim of being memorable. After a while, people starting sending me email back to tell me they loved my OOF…they’d stop me in the coffee queue to say they thought my OOF was hilarious.
It’s a small tool of the personal branding trade but a useful one. Give your next OOF some thought and liven up your recipients day. I’ll leave you one or two of my more memorable OOF’s in the hope they’re of some inspiration. Oh and my OOF is on right now so feel free to send email to stevecla AT microsoft.com to get the latest version.
