For the next week I will be out of office – far out. In fact, I’ll be hiking in Croatia.

But while I’m gone, here’s a challenge for you: What’s the best “Out of office” reply you’ve ever seen? One that goes beyond just “I’m not available and will be back on xx/xx”. One that’s fun, creative and different.

Post it in a comment here. Best contribution before August 15 wins a copy of my book Happy Hour is 9 to 5.

And while you’re at it, maybe you can think about a more fun and creative “Out of office” mail for when you go on vacation.

What does it take to be happy at work? Is it about salary, bonuses, perks and promotions?

No. All of those are nice, but they can never make you happy at work. Happiness at work comes from two other simple factors. Watch this 4-minute video to learn more.

This is the second video in a series of five that we did for Danish enzyme producer Novozymes. They are already a great workplace, and as part of a campaign called “It’s Great to be a Zymer” wanted a simple, fun way to communicate the basic concepts of happiness at work to their employees in Denmark, China, USA and Brazil. So they hired us to do these videos, which their employees can access on the intranet. They have very kindly allowed us to share the videos with a wider audience.

I got this comment last week on my post on how to find a job you’ll love:

My advice, find a job that pays well, stay there and make your life outside work worth it. Don’t believe the hype about getting your degree and living a great life with a job you love. I tried it and now I’m going to lose my house, my car and probably my family cause I can’t find work.

There’s something to this. Making happiness one of the primary goals of your career and work life carries a cost. It may make finding a new job harder, because you can’t just take any job out there. It means taking action and working to improve you job if you’re not happy. It may even mean having to leave a workplace because you realize that you will never be happy there no matter how hard you try. This is why I never tell people to put happiness first. I ask them to consider making that choice – and making it with open eyes.

However, the simple counter-argument to the comment above is this: People who hate their jobs get fired all the time too.

The Toolbox office space in Torino, Italy.

I got an email a while back about Toolbox, a professional incubator in Torino, Italy.

From the material describing the space:

The project is believed to meet the needs of a city in a phase of substantial transformation.

At a time when, with a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection, it is possible to work from anywhere, the question emerging is what professional space is needed for. How is it possible to design a space combining users’ plurality with the coherence of the whole design? How is it possible to mediate between a need for socialisation and privacy, between relaxation and concentration?

From the functional point of view, the project consists in the creation of an open space with 44 individual workstations combined with other services and activities. The goal has been to keep the modular concrete structure unaltered.

The main span of the building has been divided lengthwise by a series of ‘filter volumes’ used as technical spaces for storing lockers and equipment. On one side, there is the co-working space, on the other side, the corridors and the functional ‘box’ containing shared facilities such as meeting rooms, print rooms, informal meeting spaces, mailboxes, a patio and a kitchen.

Sounds good, but what really knocked my socks off was these pictures:

That is just stunning!

What I like about this space is not just that it’s colourful and inspiring – that’s nice but it’s only a start. What I especially appreciate is that it caters to to many different working styles and personalities. Some people thrive in a large open space others hate it like the plague. For some tasks you may prefer one area – for other tasks

The true crime of many office buildings these days is both that they’re drab, uniform and boring but also that they assume that everybody is the same and only offer one type of working environment.

Your take

How about your workspace? Does it inspire you at all? Does it work for you and your wo-workers and does it allow for different working styles for different tasks?

Related posts

• Top 10 seeeeeeeeeriously cool workplaces
• 12 Ways to Pimp Your Office

Check out this comment from Cindy:

I made up a game for my weekly department meetings to refresh and train the staff in a fun and competitive way.(I was managing a despatch department in a manufacturing company)

The Game
I made a list of questions relating to the department, it’s procedures and the stock etc.
I purchased a bag of lollies and treats (a couple of dollars taken from petty cash)
I gave each person at the meeting a bell and the first one to ring the bell and get the question right got a lollie or treat.
The overall winner was the person who scored the most lollies/treats.

This game created excitement because the staff had to beat each other to the buzzer and that got them thinking at the same time. It made them all feel like a winner in the end because everyone ended up with some prizes.

However the best benefit from this game was that if they did not know the answer or couldn’t remember the answer (sometimes a person may have their facts wrong and you have been trying to enforce the correct answer – usually someone who has been there a while and think they no longer need training) that person walked away from the meeting having learnt something they will probably remember because it was taught in a fun environment.A fun way of refreshing and training.
The staff grew to love the weekly quizzes and became quite competitive about it.

Try it at your next meeting
Cheers

What do you think – could this work in your workplace? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done in a meeting?

Original post: Five weeeeeeeeird tips for great meetings.