The Old New Thing

Automatic messages when you're not in the office – the infamous OOF

May 11, 2006 May 11, 2006 05/11/06

Raymond Chen

"OOF" is a word you hear a lot at Microsoft. KC Lemson gave the etymology a while back (though my recollection is that it stood for "Out of Office Feature", not that my memory is good for much nowadays). Incidentally, KC is profiled on the Microsoft Careers site, though she goes under the top-secret code name "KC" there. Most people set ...