LUXEMBOURG-VILLE — Saying that nothing will be more relaxing than sorting out and prioritizing the 12,403 emails that have filled her inbox during the last couple months, a Luxembourg department head is looking forward to spending her upcoming vacation sitting on a quiet beach with her family and staring at her tablet all day.
“The whole summer has been a total nightmare,” said the woman, 41, whose daily responsibilities have left her unable to deal with the deluge of up to 500 emails per day. “Too many issues to solve, lots of people calling in sick, and all those accounts to finalize.”
“I don’t know how I managed to survive without losing my mind,” she continued, her hand involuntarily twitching and a look of madness on her face. “It’ll be so nice to get on the plane with my family, fly eight hours to that tranquil island resort, and go into a state of semi-consciousness as I read each email and respond accordingly while I occasionally see, as if through a long dark tunnel, my husband and kids playing in the surf.”
“Maybe I’ll order a Mai Tai in the middle of the morning and later discover that six hours have passed, I’ve only read 200 emails, I haven’t touched my drink, that it’s all warm and gross now, and that wasps have built a thriving wasp city inside the glass,” she added.
Admitting that while dealing with work emails won’t leave her much time for other leisure activities, she will make an effort to have a little fun by frequently monitoring her four senior managers. And no matter what, she insists, she will not let anything get in the way of her favorite vacation morning activity, which is to remotely attend board meetings.
