Monday.
8:12 AM.
Corporate inbox.
A fragile ecosystem.
Nobody was fully awake yet.
People were quietly pretending to “circle back” while emotionally buffering their first coffee.
Then someone sent the email.
Subject line:
“Reminder: Team Lunch Thursday”
Harmless.
Normal.
Safe.
And then…
someone hit Reply All.
“Thanks!”
One word.
But like all historic disasters, it started small.
Within seconds:
“Thanks!”
“Looking forward to it!”
“Can’t wait!”
“Yum!”
Thirty-seven emails.
Eight minutes.
One man accidentally attached a spreadsheet.
Another responded:
“Please remove me from this thread.”
Which somehow triggered MORE reply-alls.
At one point Legal got involved.
And honestly?
I became irrationally furious.
Not because of the emails themselves.
But because every new notification felt like civilization slowly collapsing one Outlook chime at a time.
Meanwhile…
I was also absolutely reading every single response.
Could I Have Been Less?
Probably.
Reply-all chaos is annoying.
But emotionally preparing for societal collapse over lunch RSVPs may have been dramatic.