Funny dad's out of office email goes viral

You might want to steal this one.

For most office workers, being on vacation doesn’t stop the never-ending stream of emails from appearing in your inbox during your absence. However, one dad’s away message might help prevent people from reaching out to you, while also injecting a little humor into your workplace.

A user on Reddit shared a photo of his coworker Roy’s funny auto-reply email, which is designed to both entertain and remind people that he's going off the grid for a little bit.

“I know, I know. You got an immediate reply. And you were all like: ‘Ah! So he CAN answer emails,’” the dad joked to begin the message. “But alas, dear writer. I am off to a sunny island with the two people I love most. No, not Luke Skywalker and Jimi Hendrix. My wife and my son! Nothing but a week of sun and quality time with my two favorite people.”

He then dropped some advice.

“It’s the recipe to happiness,” he wrote. “I highly recommend you try it. With your loved ones, I mean. You can’t have mine. That’d be freaky.”

Roy pointed out how most people pretend to be unable to reply on vacation, when they really can—but he just doesn’t want to.

“Usually people write they have no access to mail or phone and we all know that’s a lie—they just don’t want to reply,” he explained. “I am, however, deleting Outlook from my phone for the week and roaming is off, so I literally cannot be contacted until I am back, which will be Tuesday, December 11.”

He also mentioned he will reply when he gets back—unless nature gets in the way.

“I look forward to replying to you then … unless I get eaten by a shark or something,” he wrote. “If that does happen, then it’s OK. The shark would be eating a happy meal.”

Since being posted, the email has gone viral received almost 40,000 upvotes on Reddit. While many appreciated Roy’s sense of humor, some did point out he didn’t mention who people should contact for urgent matters while he was away. But, otherwise, he managed to take a lighthearted approach to an office standard. And, as he wrote, that was the goal.

“I only ask you remember me as a kind man who loved vegetarian curries and death metal and whose auto-reply made your day a little less ‘winter is coming’ and a bit more ‘island in the sun,’” he wrote to close out the email.

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