At my current job, we are expected—required, actually—to respond to all emails within one hour. Not “acknowledge.” Not “skim with the vague intention of circling back.” No. Full-response. Within the hour. Like some kind of emotional concierge service with a keyboard and a soul that left in Q4 of last year.

To cope, I did what any responsible employee with a complete lack of boundaries and a modest God complex would do: I trained an AI to handle it for me.

But not to actually respond, of course. That would require comprehension, nuance, and the kind of moral flexibility normally reserved for sitcom villains and freelance consultants. No—this AI is designed to send just enough of an excuse to buy me time while I go on doing important things like microwaving string cheese and reevaluating my life choices in five-minute increments.

What follows is a curated selection of these AI-generated excuses, ranked on two factors:

  • Believability – How likely is it that a client will accept this without calling your boss.
  • Effectiveness – How likely is it to buy you time, redirect blame, or otherwise make the problem Not Your Problem™ for at least 48 hours.

Because in 2025, you don’t ignore emails—you outsource your avoidance.

  1. “Apologies, I was in a meeting.”
    Believability: 🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢 (5/5)
    Effectiveness: 🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴 (5/5)
    Notes: Universally accepted. True most of the time. “Meeting” is an abstract concept used to justify ignoring people without legal consequence.

  2. “Sorry, I missed this—my cat walked across my keyboard and deleted your email.”
    Believability: 🟢🟢🟢🟢⚪ (4/5)
    Effectiveness: 🔴⚪⚪⚪⚪ (1/5)
    Notes: Acceptable in domestic or feline-adjacent contexts. Ineffective if recipient knows you don’t own a cat. Particularly suspicious if your cat is a fish.

  3. “Thanks for your message — we’re currently calibrating timelines to ensure your request gets the focus it deserves.”
    Believability: 🟢🟢🟢🟢🟢
    Effectiveness: 🔴🔴🔴⚪⚪
    Notes: Sounds respectful, says nothing. A certified classic. You can drop this in at any stage of a client meltdown and it lands like a warm towel and a defibrillator.

  4. “We’ve surfaced this internally and are currently in the ‘strategic ideation’ phase.”
    Believability: 🟢🟢⚪⚪⚪
    Effectiveness: 🔴🔴🔴🔴⚪
    Notes: “Strategic ideation” means someone vaguely remembered your request in the shower and thought, “Huh.” It works because it sounds expensive.

  5. “Thanks for the nudge! We’ve escalated this to our internal escalation matrix for tiered triage.”
    Believability: 🟢🟢⚪⚪⚪
    Effectiveness: 🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴
    Notes: No client will admit they don’t know what a “tiered triage” is. This gives you 2–3 business days and possibly a promotion in the chaos hierarchy.

  6. “My AI scheduled a reply for 2071 because it misunderstood the Gregorian calendar and now refuses to be corrected out of pride.” Believability: 🟢⚪⚪⚪⚪ (1/5)
    Effectiveness: 🔴🔴🔴⚪⚪ (5/5)
    Notes: Clients will be excited to hear you have AI integrated, understand that technology fails, and confused as to who “Greg” is and why he has a calendar.

  7. “We’re currently consulting with our Temporal Operations Liaison to assess projected alignment windows.”
    Believability: 🟢⚪⚪⚪⚪
    Effectiveness: 🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴
    Notes: What is time? You’ve elevated the request to a quantum level. Your client will leave you alone out of awe or fear.

  8. “Update: our AI scheduler has rerouted this task due to conflicting parallel universe workflows.”
    Believability: ⚪⚪⚪⚪⚪
    Effectiveness: 🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴
    Notes: Surprisingly effective if your client recently attended a tech conference or owns more than two NFTs.

  9. “We are currently in negotiations with the spreadsheet to regain access to editable cells. It is winning.”
    Believability: ⚪⚪⚪⚪⚪
    Effectiveness: 🔴🔴🔴🔴⚪
    Notes: Chaotic neutral energy. Clients who’ve lived through a “collaborative” Excel document will nod solemnly.

  10. “Apologies — we accidentally launched your request into production too early and now it’s sentient. We’re working to de-escalate.”
    Believability: ⚪⚪⚪⚪⚪
    Effectiveness: 🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴
    Notes: Terrifying. Final form. You’ve gone full Skynet. Do not overuse unless you are also willing to fake a power outage.


An example image of an AI excuse working flawlessly against a work client.
Don't worry Jason, we're also working to figure that out.



Final Thoughts
In a world where inboxes are eternal but motivation is finite, the only truly unacceptable excuse is honesty. Whether it’s blaming your cat, your consciousness, or a rogue algorithm with abandonment issues, remember: your worth is not defined by your response time, but by your ability to convincingly pretend you meant to respond all along.

Which, coincidentally, is also how I got through college and a stint in middle management.

You’re welcome.