out-of-office-designer

Out Of Office Designer Skill

An out-of-office message is the visible 10% of a system whose real job is making the absence survivable without you — and most OOO setups are an apology with dates. The working version routes: every likely need maps to a named human who agreed to it, the auto-reply states who-for-what, urgent has a real path that isn't your phone, and the return date in the message is padded a day so re-entry isn't a 400-email ambush during back-to-back meetings.

What This Skill Produces

• The OOO message — dates (padded), routing by need, the urgent path, no apology
• The coverage map — likely needs → named coverers, each confirmed, each briefed
• The pre-departure checklist — the handoffs, the expectations set, the deadlines moved before they become someone's surprise
• The re-entry plan — the buffer day, the triage-first rule, the coverage debrief

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The dates and the real reachability — genuinely offline, reachable-for-emergencies (define emergency), or working-remotely-lite (a different message entirely)
• The likely needs — what people usually come to them for; each needs a coverer or an explicit "waits until I'm back"
• The coverers — names, and whether they've actually agreed (a coverage map nobody consented to is fiction)
• In-flight work — what's mid-stream, with deadlines that land during the absence

Framework: The Protection Rules

1. Route, don't apologize: "I'm away [dates]. For X, contact [A]; for Y, [B]; everything else I'll answer from [padded return date]." No "sorry for any inconvenience" — absence is normal; the message's job is routing, and apology invites exception-seeking.
2. Pad the return date: message says you're back a day later than reality — the buffer day absorbs the backlog triage, the coverage debrief, and re-entry without meetings stacked on hour one. This is the single highest-value line in the design.
3. Coverage is consent plus briefing: each coverer gets a one-page brief per handoff (state, next step, escalation line, the do-not-decide list) — see the handoff discipline in [session-handoff](../session-handoff/SKILL.md); the same rules apply to humans.
4. Urgent gets one narrow path: a single named person who can reach you for a defined emergency ("production down, deal collapsing — not scheduling"). No path = your phone becomes the path; too-wide path = everything is urgent.
5. Pre-departure beats remediation: the week before: deadlines landing mid-absence get moved or delegated now, stakeholders get told before the auto-reply tells them, and the last day ends with the handoff briefs sent — not started.

Output Format

OOO Design: [dates] — reachability: [mode]

The Message

[The auto-reply, verbatim: padded dates · routing lines · the urgent path · zero apology]

Coverage Map

| Likely need | Coverer (confirmed?) | Briefed | Escalation |

|---|---|---|---|

Pre-Departure Checklist

[Deadlines moved · stakeholders pre-told · briefs sent · calendar blocked for the buffer day]

Re-Entry

[Buffer day: triage-first (the email-triage pass), coverage debrief, no meetings before noon]

Quality Checks

• [ ] The message routes by need and contains no apology
• [ ] The stated return date is padded by a day
• [ ] Every coverer confirmed and holds a brief
• [ ] "Urgent" is defined, with one named path
• [ ] Mid-absence deadlines were moved before departure, not discovered after

Anti-Patterns

• [ ] Do not write dates-and-sorry — an OOO without routing just redirects everything to your return
• [ ] Do not name coverers who haven't agreed — that's delegation by ambush
• [ ] Do not leave "urgent" undefined — undefined urgency defaults to everything
• [ ] Do not return to a full calendar — the buffer day is part of the vacation's ROI
• [ ] Do not check email "just a little" on a genuinely-offline plan — one reply resets everyone's expectations of your absence