- Out Of Office, Out Of Mind -

 (Stars - Jamie Dupuis)

I hate writing 'Out Of Office' messages. They're boring and sterile and ... well, let's go back to boring again since that kind of sums it up.

Because I'm a staggering narccisist and think that people WILL try to get in touch with me while I'm gone, I try to put a little effort into my OOO messages, usually pulling them firmly out of the bounds of what could commonly be considered professional. 

Based on the replies I've gotten from completely random individuals at the company, folks don't seem to mind. More than that, they seem to enjoy it and have asked if I was keeping the ones that I've written so far. To those people, I've thus far responded with a slightly offended, "No! That would be sort of ... arrogant, wouldn't you say?"

Which is, until just now, both accurate and unfortunately true.

Oh well. Like you're surprised.

Some of these have been edited to remove names or identifying events for the sake of paranoia. Politeness and privacy also but mostly paranoia.

- - - - - - -

OOO - 2022-07-16

(Note: Many of my messages have revolved around two pitiable agents whose job it is to try and keep me confined as much as possible to avoid the spread of chaos. This is the most recent as of its posting.)

“Sir! Sir, we have a prob…lem?” 

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“…Because he’s gone again, sir! And not just gone, we’ve tracked him to a convention in Dallas!”

“I am quite aware of this.”

“Sir, there…there are going to be a lot of other people there.”

“Several thousand, I would imagine, yes.”

“…He’s going to be speaking, sir. In public.”

“That is correct.”

“He’s going to be out there, unsupervised, in PUBLIC, sir! For a week! He’s not supposed to come back until July 25th. That’s a whole week for him to sew absolute chaos!”

“Again, you’re quite correct.”

“But…you’re just sitting there, eating popcorn. He bought special SHOES for this, sir! Look at this photo!”

“Good grief, those are offensive! Put that thing away!…and calm down. He’s not our problem. His manager is down there with him.”

“So you’re just…going to sit back and watch the mayhem unfold?”

“That is absolutely what I’m going to do. The boys over in Accounting tell me that he made a rather large purchase of sour gummy worms and superglue with his P-Card. I imagine the screaming will begin shortly.”

“…Pass the popcorn.”