I am out of the office until the 12th June - I will respond to your message when I return.
It had become a standing joke, Greg Spencer's out of office message.
He had died you see.
Not at work you understand. No, he had taken a sabbatical for three months. He had only been one week in when he had died in the night. An aneurysm.
The first person to get his out-of-office contacted the support desk to get it removed. It was in bad taste to still be active.
It was also a little spooky. A message from a dead man.
They couldn't remove it. A glitch in the mail client. They tried their best but to no avail.
So it had become a joke. Especially as the day got closer.
'What if he comes back, all dead and decayed?'
'Seeking vengeance against the living.'
Oh how we joked.
But there were none of us laughing on the 12th of June.