In an act of radical boundary-setting, 28-year-old Dana Walker has started adding a little sprinkle of purified anthrax spores to her out of office message.
Dana told reporters, “If they didn’t get the message to not email me when I’m on vacation before, I’m sure they’re getting the hint now.”
Protect your peace, queen!
“Getting people to respect your work boundaries is all about threatening them with biological warfare,” Dana added. “That, and respectful communication.”
Exactly! What a great tip!
“Obviously, I use the anthrax to send the message that I do not want to be disturbed,” Dana continued. “But the physical impact of the spores is a great side effect, too. If all goes well, the person who reached out to me will get sick enough to not have the energy to send another email until I’m back in the office.”
When asked what she would do if she accidentally killed someone using this tactic, Dana simply said, “Sometimes that’s just the consequence of emailing someone who’s on vacation.”
She added, “If they want to mark their email ‘URGENT’ then I’m going to give them something actually urgent to deal with.”
That’s simply logical!
Dana noted the 2001 Amerithrax attacks as her inspiration, but wanted to clarify that, in her case, she was actually mailing people anthrax “in self-defense.”
“If someone doesn’t respect your ‘I’ll get back to you when I’m back in the office next week’ auto-reply message, then they’re forcing you to take more drastic measures. In my case: anthrax,” Dana said. “Yeah, they didn’t want to inhale anthrax spores, but I didn’t want to receive a work email while I was lying on the beach in Boca Raton. You see how we’re both being harmed here?”
When reporters asked if there might be some form of communication in between a regular out of office message and straight up anthrax, Dana said that, “Sometimes bioweapons are the only way to really say, ‘Enough is enough.’”
So true, girl!
In spite of reporters’ concerns, Dana considered her actions “more than fair” and “a good conversation starter for when she’s back in the office.”
“At least now they’ll be all like, ‘Why the fuck did you mail me anthrax’ instead of asking me about my vacation.”
