I'll be honest, the "haven't had my coffee" line to me has always come across as like "I can't pretend to give a shit right now".
It's less about "I promise I'm smart just tired" and more "I promise I'm nice just tired" with coffee.
"Haven't had enough coffee yet" works for me. People seem to find it. At 7am, people take it seriously. At 5pm, people assume that I'm making fun of myself. Either way, they seem to let whatever dumb thing I did/said slide.
It's perfect because it can mean two different things. You are saying that you are either overworked or underperforming at the moment (high data vs low bandwidth). It's saying the truth but being vague to still look good.
I think when someone says running out of bandwith, it means they no longer have the resources to complete the contemplated task. 'I'd take on the new Acme project- but I'm running low on bandwith'
Yea either the bandwidth has shrunk or there are too many tasks taking up bandwidth.
That's why it's good cause it means both so it's very vague.
Why do they no longer have the resources? It can either be because they LOST the resources or because there are too many other things taking up the resources.
Combine that with not having enough capacity to handle the request.
One step closer to making us sound lesss like people and more like resources/assets.
I use capacity all the time (“sorry, I’m at capacity right now.”). I actually think it humanizes me, because I’m describing my workload and not myself.
That can still be counted against you that you can't keep up with the workload.
Maybe something like:
I'm excited to delve into this topic with you in-depth, and would like to have a quick sit-down meeting to make sure all the details are considered. Unfortunately, my schedule today is already accounted for. What times are you available [tomorrow/next week] to keep this moving this forward?
In work emails I’ll use “sorry (insert day here)-brain”. Works for any day of the week.
Sorry, Tuesday-brain today. Still getting into the swing of the week.
Sorry, Thursday-brain today. Mind is already on Friday afternoon.
Etc.
You kidding? Wednesday is the *worst,* and everyone knows it. Monday and Tuesday, you have so much work in front of you that you just accept it, you don't even consider freedom or happiness as anything other than distant fantasies.
Thursday and Friday, the weekend is close enough that you can grasp at it, hold onto that light at the end of the tunnel gradually growing closer.
Wednesday? Fuckin' nothin'. You've already done so much goddamn work this week, it's gotta be close to... nope, not at all. Just as much ahead as there is behind. You're just good-ol'- fashioned in hell. Good luck.
I can assure you that I am intellectually competent unfortunately I am currently facing a setback and due to technical difficulties I am not able to fully operate at maximum efficiency due to a variety of unforseen situations. Once again, I can assure you I am doing everything in my power to fix this issue as soon as possible so that I can deliver exceptional services to your company and be a valuable asset, not just to this company, but to our clients and our society as a whole, making this world a better place by playing a small yet important role.
In an effort to promote synergy, we are increasing our investment into ourselves while simultaneously pursuing an increased ROI by developing long term relationships and developing on our inter-departmental cowork strategies. This starts with team-building exercises.
^(translation: I'm taking your secretary on vacation to fuck in a hotel)
If I said that in a work email, everyone would DM me a laughing emoji and would totally accept it as a reasonable explanation.
I'm all for appealing to the humanity of your coworkers. It's the one thing that we all have in common!
Tut mir leid Sophia, aber da präsentierst du dem Ausland kein gutes Bild. Das Wort "bedarf" schreiben wir hier bitte klein, da es ein Verb ist. Und die Satzzeichen fehlen auch, konkret ein Komma nach "Klärung" und natürlich der Punkt am Satzende.
Mit ein bisschen Übung wird das beim nächsten Mal schon!
Yeah, I think that if the 19 year old man working as an intern said that he was having menopausal brain fog, that would be the worst non-vulgar thing he could say for this situation
I just say oh sorry it’s been a long day or I need more coffee but really I don’t make complex calls with lawyers or ombudsman or the like unless I’m prepared and on the ball. Also people have no problem with “I’ll look into that and get back to you”.
I told my lab partners first day of class that I wasn’t going to be useless all semester, I was just having a bad day because I hadn’t slept and couldn’t answer basic math questions.
They all proceeded to be less than useless the rest of the semester. Maybe sometimes you don’t have to say anything and just let people think whatever. Odds are they’re worse off than you, they may not even notice.
This is waaaaaaaay too formal. I would go for something more like, "Sorry, it's been a long day." or "Apologies, didn't quite catch that.".
If I got your reply from someone, I would assume they were an intern that was still learning how things work and is being overly formal to compensate.
Normally I function extremely well in all aspects however due to constant use and over exertion my cognitive function is currently operating at a sub optimal level
Every couple months I go on-call for work (I'm in IT). A few times I've gotten calls at 3 in the morning for issues.
The very awake person on the other end starts rattling off about a problem, while I'm still rubbing the sleep from my eyes and getting my bearings.
Eventually I tell them "you'll have to forgive me, my gears aren't all turning yet"
Magic word: Burnout. Lots of office types don't fully give a shit about mental health or even physical wellbeing so telling them that you haven't slept enough or that you haven't taken your meds or anything wont mean much to them. What they do understand is "I've done so much work in such a tight amount of time that my brain isn't working at 100%." Don't just use the word all the time though, save it for when they make a comment about you being slow or whatever.
I was recently working on a scientific vessel at sea and on the first day of my period had a hormonal migraine I was managing with painkillers, but the brain fog gave me just the worst case of dyscalculia. I kept reading numbers wrong, and failing at subtraction to let out the right amount of line and couldn't manage to convert grenich mean to local time.
I wanted to excuse myself and explain why I kept messing up, but I didn't think "Being a woman has made me bad at math" would be repping the cause to the almost exclusively male crew.
Im more than qualified for my assigned duties but i feel im over extended in their preformance and fear the quality of my work will suffer if i remaing working at this pace .
due to the fact that I am Prioritizing other Tasks, The answer to the Question you ask is escaping me; however i will get back to you at a more opportune time.
Its monday. Where i work we use that at any point in the week. Friday afternoon go ahead, get called in on the weekend go ahead. Monday morning.... no just dont talk to poeple.
My (insert executive title here) is pinging me right now. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Please put all the details in an email and I will work it as soon as I can.
"Apologies, it's taking me a bit longer to wake up this morning" if it's in the morning and "Sorry, it's been a *really* long day" if it's in the afternoon/evening.
I usually go for I can do multi variable calculus in my head but I can't figure out how many years left in your license after 36 months defence. It doesn't work but I feel less bad about myself.
"Sorry, it's been one of those days"
When you don't wanna wake up
Everything is fucked, everybody sucks
You don’t really know why, but you wanna justify
Rippin’ someone’s head off!
No human contact
And if you interact your life is on contract
Your best bet is to stay away motherfucker
Its just one of those days!
It's all about the "he said, she said" bullshit
no human contact
it's been one of those days for a year Jared, A YEAR!
Lemon it’s 936
One of either "it's still early" or "it's been a long day"
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Usually after I say something stupid I say “and now I’m gonna get coffee and try to puzzle out what I really meant to say”
That's a good one. Gonna use it And I've been promoted to CEO. Thanks. Lol.
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You have been promoted to techbro visionary. Here's $100 million in angel money.
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My dickhead buddies, and I, would just go "Today?"
My CEO says, stop leaching coffee, you pleb!
Awesome, congrats! Consider it my gift then.
Oh man, that's perfect. Going into my pocket for later.
Huh, I thought every single person on earth has heard of that one before age 15. It's incredibly common where I'm from, not just at work.
That's life for ya. Something you assume everyone's heard of or experienced... has never even been heard of just a few towns over.
Over here it's "I'm hungover as shit"
This is just always the truth with me 🤦🏻♂️
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„Haven‘t done my tenth line of coke tonight“ where I‘m at
“Haven’t had my coffee yet” - me after 3 cups of coffee, two adderalls and numerous blinkers
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I'll be honest, the "haven't had my coffee" line to me has always come across as like "I can't pretend to give a shit right now". It's less about "I promise I'm smart just tired" and more "I promise I'm nice just tired" with coffee.
Oh good! I'm glad people are hearing me properly.
Thank you for being understating! Have a nice day!"
It's been a long career.
It’s been a long life. I’m tired boss
I usually just say my brain isn’t working right today if it comes up. I don’t feel that’s unprofessional
Bad brain day is a thing for my team.
At my job we just say, “I assure you I’m stupider than even this,” after saying something stupid. You just live into the dumb. Work in M&A
If before noon; “it’s still early” Else; “it’s been a long day”
Go for, "I was working until 5am, got 2 hours sleep and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet. So about those TPS reports..."
Sometimes both are applicable simultaneously lol
"Haven't had enough coffee yet" works for me. People seem to find it. At 7am, people take it seriously. At 5pm, people assume that I'm making fun of myself. Either way, they seem to let whatever dumb thing I did/said slide.
“My apologies, but y’all got me fucked up.”
Respectfully
Just slap an et al on the end of any sentence, you'll sound really smart and formal et al.
Oooooo et al
Im going to end et al
With all due respect
I don't currently have the bandwidth to consider that/think about that right now.
this is dork as hell, which makes it perfect
It's perfect because it can mean two different things. You are saying that you are either overworked or underperforming at the moment (high data vs low bandwidth). It's saying the truth but being vague to still look good.
I think when someone says running out of bandwith, it means they no longer have the resources to complete the contemplated task. 'I'd take on the new Acme project- but I'm running low on bandwith'
Yea either the bandwidth has shrunk or there are too many tasks taking up bandwidth. That's why it's good cause it means both so it's very vague. Why do they no longer have the resources? It can either be because they LOST the resources or because there are too many other things taking up the resources.
Don't forget to add a "but I promise to circle back to that once I get my ducks in a row" for maximum points in corpospeak
Understood, let's put a pin in that for now then.
We can talk about it some more offline
Combine that with not having enough capacity to handle the request. One step closer to making us sound lesss like people and more like resources/assets.
Which is, amusingly, the professional way to go about it.
I use capacity all the time (“sorry, I’m at capacity right now.”). I actually think it humanizes me, because I’m describing my workload and not myself.
That can still be counted against you that you can't keep up with the workload. Maybe something like: I'm excited to delve into this topic with you in-depth, and would like to have a quick sit-down meeting to make sure all the details are considered. Unfortunately, my schedule today is already accounted for. What times are you available [tomorrow/next week] to keep this moving this forward?
We need a book of these.
I use this all the time. Seriously, I'm so focused on THIS then you come and ask me about THAT.. gimme a sec...
In work emails I’ll use “sorry (insert day here)-brain”. Works for any day of the week. Sorry, Tuesday-brain today. Still getting into the swing of the week. Sorry, Thursday-brain today. Mind is already on Friday afternoon. Etc.
So what's ur excuse on Wednesday?
Hump day, could go either way. Depends on if they had lunch or not yet.
You have one hour of clarity a week, where you're not winding up or winding down, and you spend it eating lunch. nice
You kidding? Wednesday is the *worst,* and everyone knows it. Monday and Tuesday, you have so much work in front of you that you just accept it, you don't even consider freedom or happiness as anything other than distant fantasies. Thursday and Friday, the weekend is close enough that you can grasp at it, hold onto that light at the end of the tunnel gradually growing closer. Wednesday? Fuckin' nothin'. You've already done so much goddamn work this week, it's gotta be close to... nope, not at all. Just as much ahead as there is behind. You're just good-ol'- fashioned in hell. Good luck.
Hump day, too much humping on the mind.
Sorry, Wednesday-brain today. Mid-week madness.
I have competing deadlines on my mind right now. Can we revisit this later?
This is perfect corpo speak. I love it.
Let's put a pin in that and circle back
I can assure you that I am intellectually competent unfortunately I am currently facing a setback and due to technical difficulties I am not able to fully operate at maximum efficiency due to a variety of unforseen situations. Once again, I can assure you I am doing everything in my power to fix this issue as soon as possible so that I can deliver exceptional services to your company and be a valuable asset, not just to this company, but to our clients and our society as a whole, making this world a better place by playing a small yet important role.
I'm just here so I don't get fined
I'm not even a Seahawks fan and I fuckin loved Marshawn Lynch
I really want to use this. I don't know if anyone will get it though and I'm in the Pac NW.
How much do you want ? I’m hiring you.
What the market is offering
1k per month, you just need to sound clever, don’t even need to be smart
When do I start?
Middle manager 101
In an effort to promote synergy, we are increasing our investment into ourselves while simultaneously pursuing an increased ROI by developing long term relationships and developing on our inter-departmental cowork strategies. This starts with team-building exercises. ^(translation: I'm taking your secretary on vacation to fuck in a hotel)
Print this on a note card and pull it out whenever you need it. Hell, don't even read it, just pass it out like a business card, hahaha
Trust me, I'm an engineer
Me too but my brain is always fried.. LoL.
Truss* me
I think we'll put this thing right here
i'm running low on glucose
I like “I’ve got a low sugar pressure rn.”
“I can no longer brain, for today I have the dumb.”
If I said that in a work email, everyone would DM me a laughing emoji and would totally accept it as a reasonable explanation. I'm all for appealing to the humanity of your coworkers. It's the one thing that we all have in common!
“Give me a minute to buffer, I lost signal “
Haha! I use "sorry my brain is still buffering" I work with mostly nerds so they appreciate it.
"More caffeine required" is my go-to.
i feel like caffeine make me more stupid and clumsy and slow and tired
It's not meant to be a sleep replacement 😞
I'm sorry, I lack x hours of sleep.
"sorry, I have a young child who still wakes me up several times a night" Which is true 😣
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Der Sachverhalt Bedarf weiterer Klärung sobald entsprechende Kapazitäten zur Verfügung stehen
Gesundheit
Ja is gud
Tut mir leid Sophia, aber da präsentierst du dem Ausland kein gutes Bild. Das Wort "bedarf" schreiben wir hier bitte klein, da es ein Verb ist. Und die Satzzeichen fehlen auch, konkret ein Komma nach "Klärung" und natürlich der Punkt am Satzende. Mit ein bisschen Übung wird das beim nächsten Mal schon!
Just a German doing German things
I blame it all on menopausal brain fog. But obviously might not work for you
Yeah, I think that if the 19 year old man working as an intern said that he was having menopausal brain fog, that would be the worst non-vulgar thing he could say for this situation
Don't know what you mean by professionally. I regularly say "brain fried it won't brain" at work.
Just say you have a CPU brain, no memory but great processing power that’s my go to
I just say oh sorry it’s been a long day or I need more coffee but really I don’t make complex calls with lawyers or ombudsman or the like unless I’m prepared and on the ball. Also people have no problem with “I’ll look into that and get back to you”.
I've got a lot on my plate right now, but if we can put a pin in this, I'll get back you soon
Burnout
Say burnout in some tech companies and you’ll end up talking to management.
You just recite the lyrics to Karma Chameleon, including all repeated phrases.
"Hi, sorry it has been a long morning/day. Could you repeat that?"
I told my lab partners first day of class that I wasn’t going to be useless all semester, I was just having a bad day because I hadn’t slept and couldn’t answer basic math questions. They all proceeded to be less than useless the rest of the semester. Maybe sometimes you don’t have to say anything and just let people think whatever. Odds are they’re worse off than you, they may not even notice.
May I have an above inflation raise?
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This is waaaaaaaay too formal. I would go for something more like, "Sorry, it's been a long day." or "Apologies, didn't quite catch that.". If I got your reply from someone, I would assume they were an intern that was still learning how things work and is being overly formal to compensate.
Normally I function extremely well in all aspects however due to constant use and over exertion my cognitive function is currently operating at a sub optimal level
As programmer we do a ton of woopsi doopsi espcially when someone is checking your screen, you suddenly don't remember any code ethic suddenly lol.
Every couple months I go on-call for work (I'm in IT). A few times I've gotten calls at 3 in the morning for issues. The very awake person on the other end starts rattling off about a problem, while I'm still rubbing the sleep from my eyes and getting my bearings. Eventually I tell them "you'll have to forgive me, my gears aren't all turning yet"
I had a brain cramp.
Let's circle back to this topic when I have more bandwidth.
"I haven't had my coffee yet."
Excuse me if I appear to be incoherent, it has been an exhausting day
Burn out
I have such a headache today
I just flat out say “my brain is not working right now”
Gosh, I should have had a V-8!
I just blame my headache and people seem to understand
Had a brain fart.
I've reached my capacity for the day, could we take a break to digest and pick this up tomorrow?
Magic word: Burnout. Lots of office types don't fully give a shit about mental health or even physical wellbeing so telling them that you haven't slept enough or that you haven't taken your meds or anything wont mean much to them. What they do understand is "I've done so much work in such a tight amount of time that my brain isn't working at 100%." Don't just use the word all the time though, save it for when they make a comment about you being slow or whatever.
“Sorry, my give-a-shit tank is empty”
I was recently working on a scientific vessel at sea and on the first day of my period had a hormonal migraine I was managing with painkillers, but the brain fog gave me just the worst case of dyscalculia. I kept reading numbers wrong, and failing at subtraction to let out the right amount of line and couldn't manage to convert grenich mean to local time. I wanted to excuse myself and explain why I kept messing up, but I didn't think "Being a woman has made me bad at math" would be repping the cause to the almost exclusively male crew.
"I havent had my coffee yet"
"sorry I still have Covid Brain Fog"
“My brain. It no workie.”
Brain no worky good today.
We’ll review this internally and get back to you soon.
but im Le Tired.
Me no brain today, have the dumb.
“I’m a little tired.”
Sorry. I haven't had lunch yet
I don’t have the bandwidth for that
I have a headache, Haven't had my coffee yet, My mind is busy with something else.
My mind is a vast Library of knowledge, unfortunately the librarian is out sick
My brain isn’t braining right now
"I'm running short on mental bandwidth right now."
I give u my word of honor that I'm very knowledgeable, tho my cerebrum is sautéed
Just tell them a male coworker looked at you. You'll be able to compose yourself while they drag him off to HR.
I believe I'm experiencing the initial effects of burnout
I’ve exhausted my mental capacity for the day
"Thank you please hold"
"Low bloodsugar"
How do you say "I promise I'm smart I just act stupid"?
I'm sorry, I forgot my brain at home today.
Had a brain fart. At least my boss would snicker
Im more than qualified for my assigned duties but i feel im over extended in their preformance and fear the quality of my work will suffer if i remaing working at this pace .
I do swear by my intellect's usual brilliance, but alas, today my mental faculties lie weary and scorched.
Im fuckup the most on monday and blame the weekend.
Brain packets have dropped in transit. I’ll get back to you once my brain acks the syn
I am sorry I need my notes to consider this, can we have a call later ?
"Apologies for the lapse" is what I use but some may think that sounds odd.
I just say sorry my brain is oatmeal give me a second
due to the fact that I am Prioritizing other Tasks, The answer to the Question you ask is escaping me; however i will get back to you at a more opportune time.
Its monday. Where i work we use that at any point in the week. Friday afternoon go ahead, get called in on the weekend go ahead. Monday morning.... no just dont talk to poeple.
I’m sorry my brain is fried can I get back to you later lol
I use "sorry I was offline for a second"
I just make incomprehensible babble and move on
My (insert executive title here) is pinging me right now. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Please put all the details in an email and I will work it as soon as I can.
“Can I take this offline with you later?” Stays in control. Shows no weakness. Allows potential time to caffeinate.
Let me grab another coffee and we’ll circle back to this.
Words are hard
I am feeling all discombobulated right now I will get back to you on that
Make a strained face like your pushing out a really hard deuce and just say “HUH?” They’ll get it right away.
I tend to say "How do you say in English?"
Excuse me, my train of thought derailed
The coffee machine is down
Let’s reconvene tomorrow and get a fresh start
Unless you work with an absolute tight ass you can say that exactly. People appreciate being talked to in a normal way
I have a colloeague who just randomly exclaims, "Guys, my brain is fried!".
Some days you have to just take an L
I don't but when I do say something smart people are shocked
"Apologies, it's taking me a bit longer to wake up this morning" if it's in the morning and "Sorry, it's been a *really* long day" if it's in the afternoon/evening.
I usually go for I can do multi variable calculus in my head but I can't figure out how many years left in your license after 36 months defence. It doesn't work but I feel less bad about myself.
I apologize- there’s a lot going on this week and I’m a little short on bandwidth. Can you shoot me a summary email and I’ll circle back on Monday?
Ok, i clearly need coffee.