OFFICE jobs look complicated from the outside, but all they really involve is sending these five emails again and again and again forever.
‘Have you updated the spreadsheet?’
Office jobs mainly involve updating spreadsheets and asking colleagues if they have updated the spreadsheet. Which spreadsheet and what needs to be updated is never specified, it’s just a great way to look generically productive until lunch or a bathroom break. To spice things up this email might occasionally include the word ‘urgent’ in all-caps, even though no spreadsheet in history has ever been important.
‘Meeting reminder’
Everyone on the team knows there is a meeting in room 12 on the second floor at 2pm because the manager has been building up to it for months. This reminder will be sent five minutes beforehand when you are visibly getting together everything you need for the meeting and telling colleagues you’ll see them in there. Invariably, the meeting will achieve nothing.
‘Please remove me from this email chain’
This email sounds polite enough, but in reality it is being hammered out with white-hot rage. All the sender wants is to be removed from an irrelevant email chain they have been mistakenly added to and would take two minutes to fix. But no, here they are once again begging for sweet release while also calculating how long they could pay their rent if they quit right now.
‘Pub?’
Traditionally sent five minutes before lunch or the end of play to the handful of cool colleagues in an office. Even though the email consists of the word ‘Pub?’ in the subject line and nothing else, more care is taken over this message than any other workplace communication. Accidentally CC in the manager or anyone from HR and the whole experience is ruined for everyone.
‘I am out of office for the week’
The easiest and most satisfying email to send. While office workers take their annual leave in France, their trusty ‘out of office’ message eagerly informs people to redirect their concerns to some unfortunate co-worker. Sometimes holidaying drones might even quickly log in to see that it’s been sent and bask in its work-dodging glow. It’s the best part of the whole trip.
