VP said we couldn't leave until all emails were answered. So I answered them. All of them.

A few years ago, I worked at a very image-obsessed company. The VP was all about “grindset” and pushing 10-hour workdays for salaried folks.

One Friday, he dropped a bombshell in our team chat at 5:12 PM: “No one leaves until ALL client emails are answered. We want to show responsiveness.”

I had 46 unread emails. 38 were cc’d to me, 5 were newsletter-type stuff, and 3 were out-of-office auto-replies. Two were actual client questions. I answered those two immediately.

Then I replied to every other email with variations of:

“Thank you for including me. Please let me know if action is needed.”

“Received. Let me know if follow-up is required.”

“Thanks for the update. No further action on my end.”

Took about 45 minutes of copy-paste bliss. At 6:04, I pinged the VP: “All emails replied to. Leaving for the weekend.” The kicker? Monday morning, he got flooded with “What was that pointless reply from [me]?” and tried to scold me. I forwarded his “answer ALL emails” message and just said, “Just doing what was asked.” He never sent that kind of message again.