"ERROR 404: Employee Not Found" — Best Gen Z Out-of-Office Messages

I don’t know what I expected when I landed on the TikTok account of Oilshore, but it wasn’t this. Australia-based company Oilshore, which claims to be "one of the world’s leaders in transport fuels," is making waves on TikTok for its lax business etiquette and Gen Z staff.

Take a gander at the company's page and you won’t see much about the company’s work, but you will see a lot of videos about its Gen Z employees. Keep scrolling to see how these centennials write an out-of-office message.

Typically, an OOO message should be something along the lines of “Thank you for your email. I’m out of the office and will be back at (insert date of return). During this period I will have limited access to my email.”

There may be another line with directions on what to do if it's an emergency, and/or the contact details of a coworker who can be easily reached.

But let's face it — we’ve been following this OOO email message formula for decades. Gen Z wasn’t just about to copy and paste this stale lingo into their Gmail accounts — at least the Gen Z employees at Oilshore weren't.

In a two-part video series “My Gen Z Coworkers Out of Office Messages,” one employee shows her co-workers extremely informal, but hilarious out-of-office messages at Oilshore.

We’ve compiled these OOO messages below:

“On vacation. Hoping to win the lottery and never return.”

“The bad news is that I’m out of office. The good news is that I’m out of office.”

“Do not contact me while I’m on leave or I’ll report you to HR.”

“ERROR 404: Employee not found.”

“Please enjoy your break from me.”

“If you need me … too bad!”

“I’m unsure why you’re emailing me given that I put this on my calendar months ago.”

“I will be OOO from 13/10 to 17/10. If it’s an emergency call 000.”

“Contact someone other than me.”

“Get somebody else to do it.”

“Knock knock. Who’s there? Not me.”

“On holiday. Do I have access to the internet? Yes. Am I going to use it to respond to your email? No.”

“Contact literally anyone else but me.”

“Enjoying life! Will be back when i run out of money.”

“I am out of the office currently. Unfortunately, I will be back tomorrow.”

“Right email. Wrong timing.”

In the comments, folks applauded Gen Z for their candidness.

"Gen Z is the best thing that happen to the corporate world," wrote one user.

Another comment read: "I love Gen Z! I hope they stay their authentic selves as they age."

And some users loved the culture so much at Oilshore that they inquired about any open positions.

But of course, there were some haters. "Gen Z is a lost generation. Hopeless," read one comment.

Another user wrote, "They are not married with work." However, it was unclear if this user was criticizing Gen Z or just making an observation.

So, where do you stand on these OOO messages? Yay or nay?