I was out of office vs I had been out of office

These are both acceptable phrases, but they would be used in dissimilar contexts. 'I was out of office' is used to indicate a past action or state of being, while 'I had been out of office' is used to indicate a past action or state that occurred before another past action. They are not directly comparable as they serve different purposes.

Explained by Gregg
Editor at TextRanch

Last updated: December 18, 2024 • 8193 views

I was out of office

This phrase is correct and commonly used to indicate a past action or state of being.

This phrase is used to inform someone that you were not in the office at a specific time in the past.

Examples:

I was out of office last week due to a family emergency.
She couldn't reach me because I was out of office on vacation.
Sorry for the delay in responding, I was out of office for a few days.
I was out of office when the client called, but I will get back to them soon.
During the meeting, I was out of office dealing with another urgent matter.

Show examples from the web [+]
Last updated: November 21, 2024

"I was out of office" is a correct and usable phrase in written English. You can use it when you need to explain why you weren't available for a period of time.
Aug 22, 2023 ... Last week I was out of office from the end of the day on Wednesday through the following Tuesday evening. No agendas. No timelines.
Aug 23, 2024 ... My teams is on available, out of office. I was out of office days ago. How do I remove the out of office.
Jun 12, 2023 ... The worst part is I was out of office bc I was getting married/ on my honeymoon. So had I known I could have actually fixed it easily with ...
May 16, 2024 ... joannehawker on May 16, 2024: "My small business didn't get the memo I was out of office its impossible to silence my brain when I'm not ...
May 24, 2021 ... I'm doing live algo trading. I was out of office for the last few hours and when I came back, I noticed that the last order was placed about 12:37 EDT.
Thanks for following up with Breffni while I was out of office. As promised, I asked that our engineers look into this, and they have now come back to ...
May 15, 2024 ... Last week I was out of office enjoying a wonderful trip with my wife! We had so much fun soaking up the salt water and sunshine, enjoying the ...
May 7, 2024 ... I was out of office on Tuesday. On Tuesday night at 9.30pm, my manager decided to schedule a meeting for 12pm on Wednesday. He had also ...
May 19, 2024 ... Sales + Business Coach | Meghan (@meghan.lamle). 4 Likes. I was out of office for a WEEK and my business didn't stop because I had people ...

I had been out of office

This phrase is correct and is used to indicate a past action that occurred before another past action.

This phrase is used when you want to convey that you were not in the office for a period of time that ended before another specified past event.

Examples:

I had been out of office for a week before I received your message.
By the time I returned, I had been out of office for two days.
She realized she had been out of office during the crucial meeting.
Before the project deadline, I had been out of office due to illness.
The team had been out of office for training when the issue arose.

Show examples from the web [+]
Last updated: November 21, 2024

The phrase 'I had been out of office' is correct and usable in written English. You might use it to explain why you weren't available to do something.
Jan 23, 2023 ... If I had been out of office and Gmail had auto-responded. The FreshService rep would have not seen my auto-responses. Is there a way this ...
Jun 27, 2023 ... You know, when I was deciding whether or not to run again for office — and I had been out of office four years. I was a full professor at ...
The four years I had been out of office the State instigated the most moumental changes to our tax system, taking us from our old method in place since ...
... I had been out of office two days. It was 1998. Two days after I left office. we opened the ballpark. I threw out the first ball with Kirk Humphreys who was ...
Feb 3, 2015 ... “I noted that it was particularly gratifying to know that, even though I had been out of office for more than one year, my fellow DAs still ...
Aug 19, 2022 ... Good luck in your new journey Paul Esposito , was very surprised when I found out about your departure as I had been out of office for a while.
May 16, 2012 ... Sorry, I had been out of office all day, but flagged for me to pickup once I got back in. I had not spotted one of the original points you ...
Oct 7, 2024 ... And so that by 2008, I had been out of office for seven years or so and, but I had remained in touch with the work, doing the work in different ...

What Our Customers Are Saying

Our customers love us! We have an average rating of 4.79 stars based on 283,125 votes.
Also check out our 2,100+ reviews on TrustPilot (4.9).

"Thank you!"
Sachi Nakama July 2024
"I have literally been through chat, PI, claude, bard and bing and I got conflicting answers! Thank you! Human intelligence reigns!"
Retha July 2024
"Faster than AI"
CYNTHIA December 2023
"This was very helpful and I personally think this site is the best."
Kaden October 2023
"It was extremely thorough and very helpful!"
imperialelisa October 2023
"7 years without any disappointment. Always 100% satisfied. You guys are the best in the world at what you do. Thank you so much :)"
Zubair Alam October 2023
"In a world of text messages and online communication, this is great to have as a live tool. Thank you."
Selena October 2023
"Without textranch I would be stuck!"
宏祐 October 2023
"Accuracy and fast response. Personal comments from editor. Thank you."
Clh September 2023
"I wasn't aware of this service, it's fascinating and more reliable than standard IA tools available on the internet"
Arturo September 2023
"The fact that you can get reliable fast feedback on your texts."
Vinicius Antonio August 2023
"you guys are better than grammarly i'm being honest here"
ordinary July 2023
"OMG! This is really good than any other text correction tools I've used so far. Highly recommend this."
Vehan July 2023
"Very fast and accurate. thank you."
mojtaba July 2023
"I love this app because it's help to writing skills all of students ♥️"
Tarisini July 2023
"This was exactly the mistake I was looking for, the wording dind´t sound right at first. Better than grammarly!"
Ente July 2023
"The immediate help that I received was reassuring and very satisfactory. Thanks."
priiiyanshuu July 2023
"this helps A LOT for my studies."
kathnunez02 June 2023
"Woow!! I would never have expected such precision! Thank you soooo much!!"
Berta June 2023
"Real Time Editor and not AI. Many Thanks."
Priya June 2023
"The very first thing excites me about Textranch is how much your editors care."
sepideh June 2023
"The fact that texts are checked by human editors rather than by AI, etc. I appreciate this!"
Анна June 2023
"Feel welcome, immediate response, high quality feedback"
martin.roy June 2023
"This is the best app that I have ever seen"
Burulai May 2023

I was out of office vs I had been out of office

I was out of office

I had been out of office

Related Comparisons

What Our Customers Are Saying