ROSEMARY ABBOTT | Culture
“HI THERE”
When 26-year-old Loren Ashley set up her out-of-office auto-reply last Friday, she didn’t just inform her colleagues she’d be away — she unwittingly provided them with a detailed travel log of her Christmas plans.
“Hi there,” the auto-reply begins innocuously enough. “I’m out of the office and not checking emails as I’ll be traveling to the UK a couple of days before Christmas! After the UK, I’ll be heading to Dubai for New Year’s! “I’ll be back and catching up on emails from January 8th. Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season!”
While it is a well-meaning message, for some of Loren’s Christchurch colleagues, it’s simply too much, sparking mild irritation and passive-aggressive group chat messages in her workplace.
“Honestly, it’s like she’s submitting her gap year itinerary for approval,” grumbled Callum, one of Loren’s teammates, who received the reply when he emailed her about next year’s marketing schedule.
“She’s been going on about this UK trip for the last three months. But she’ll be back before we’ve even packed up the office Christmas decorations. It’s not like she’s moving there to live and work.”
Other coworkers echoed similar sentiments.
“Should we all reply to her auto-email with our own itineraries? Like, ‘Oh hey Loren, I’ll be spending Christmas in Christchurch — can’t wait to sit in traffic on the way to Sumner for the fifteenth year running.'”
When contacted for comment, Loren defended her email.
“I just want people to know where in the world I’ll be, you never know, it could be something urgent” said Loren, failing to realise her colleagues definitely know where she is as she’ll be Instagramming her whole trip in detail over the next two weeks.
More to come.
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