Hello Faculty and Staff:
With only a few days remaining before Christmas and New Year's break, we are providing a checklist of tasks you might do to prepare you, your accounts, and your offices before you leave!
Communication with students and customers
- Set your away message (vacation responder) on your email. You can set this ahead of time to start and stop on certain dates!
- Set your alternative greeting in your voicemail. While you can't set this one ahead of time, you can set a stop date. We are back to the office on Monday, 5 January 2026 at 8am!
Tips for your away messages. Include when you will be back or whether and how often you are checking your messages. Be careful with the wording of your message since it will be playing before, during, and after Christmas and New Years.
Power savings for individual offices
- Unplug or turn off any power strips.
- Unplug any AC adapters. AC adapters still draw some energy even if they are not in use. These are sometimes called "electricity vampires"
Power savings for the office suite
If you are the last one out of the office...
- Shut down your office copier and printer. Unplug them too!
- Empty out, clean out, and unplug your office fridge. Depending on your office, this is not for the faint of heart :-). Open a ticket or call Physical Plant if you need assistance with this; especially if you have a fridge that requires defrosting.
- If you have a thermostat in your office, set it to low/medium. DO NOT TURN IT OFF. Building HVAC systems will be placed into "unoccupied" mode during the break unless an office has made arrangements with Physical Plant to stay open.
Departments coming in over break
If you are planning to work over break, please let Physical Plant know when you will be in the office. Several departments are planning a work day on Monday 29 December.
When you return
- Power your copier back up. Wait at least TEN MINUTES after the copier comes back online before attempting to use it. It will look like it's ready, but it won't be for ten minutes.
- Call the IT Help Desk if you have trouble powering your copier back up. Don't reboot the copier repeatedly.
