The news is shocking yet somehow unsurprising: a local office worker has been formally diagnosed as a sociopath after an extensive investigation into her email habits. Jane Davis, a long-term employee of Corporate Drone Solutions (CDS), was found to have sent an alarming number of passive-aggressive emails containing the dreaded phrase.
“At first we thought it was just the usual corporate jargon” said colleague and certified email therapist, Tom Matebro. “But when it became her default response to even the most innocent questions, that’s when we knew something was seriously wrong.”
Experts say that the phrase, often considered the “nuclear option’ of office communication, is typically used to assert dominance while maintaining a semblance of professionalism. For Davis, however, it was more than just a phrase: “It’s her lifestyle,” Matebro added, in a sigh of resignation.
The tipping point came last Tuesday when an intern, fresh out of college and full of hope, asked Davis to clarify a point she had buried in an email 14 paragraphs long from the week before. Davis’ response? A simple, cold-blooded, “Per my last email…” that made the poor intern reconsider his career choice.
“I’ve never seen anything like it” said Nick Reardon, a workplace behavior analyst. “Her ability to weaponize basic communication in such a way shows clear signs of sociopathy. This is someone who, at best, will remind you to ‘circle back’ until you lose all notion of self-worth.”
Coworkers have since begun to avoid Davis. One anonymous source even claimed that her use of “per my last email” was “so chilling, it could freeze over a Slack channel.” More and more employees of CDS are now developing PTSD-like symptoms at the sight of incoming emails from her, even when they’re just invites to meetings that could have been avoided. “We’re even scared to claim that ‘this could have been an email’” confesses Reardon, looking down in fear.
Davis, however, remains unfazed. Our request for a formal interview was met with a brief, icy statement issued from her email account starting with “As previously mentioned…”
Authorities have been called to monitor Davis’ email usage and there are now unconfirmed reports that she’s started to incorporate phrases like “As discussed in our last meeting” and “Please advise” into her verbal conversations. According to Mr. Matebro, this is “a sociopathic escalation, no doubt.”
The HR department is reportedly considering mandatory therapy sessions for anyone who receives more than three emails from her in a day; however, sources say they are “too afraid to address it directly”, fearing retaliation and unwilling to receive even more passive-aggressive follow-ups.
