this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
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I guess I don’t have a problem with this.
I struggle to write emails and would potentially use an LLM if that were an option. (Maybe.)
The message accepted the request, and was polite, showing concern, even. I assume it was proofread and deemed acceptable to the boss/reflective of their sentiments (although perhaps not copied well).
I guess I don’t see the offense here. Anyone who does see it care to explain why this is a negative?
It's just unnecessary LLM hatred. This is actually an example of what it's supposed to be used for
If your boss is hand typing you an email like this then you can assume your boss barely does any real work
This is a really bad take my guy. In a business setting the details are important, and so is accountability. If you are using chatgpt to write emails and just copying/pasting responses you might miss it allowing or agreeing to something that you didn't mean to, like how long someone can take off and/or the overall urgency. And if you then have to go back and forth to tweak the tone and details with an LLM, you are probably wasting more time than just writing the couple of sentences yourself.
You can't use "oh but an LLM wrote this it wasn't exactly what I meant to say" as an excuse when you get called out on something in a corporate setting. And by their very nature an LLM can never say exactly what you meant to say.
Yeah I mean I've only ever worked in a datacenter where tone has never seemed to be important in our email comms. Very common to not even use please, thanks, or even punctuation in certain instances because it's not necessary to complete the task at hand
If it's a bad take then it's just yet another reason I should not be a manager ever haha
If I was responding to this email on o365 my autocorrect (LLM) would probably immediately insert "OK thanks for letting me know" because that's how I responded to a similar email last times and then I would press send and immediate ctrl+w to kill the tab and get back to my task, maybe 5 seconds of total effort
In the specific case of calling in sick, unless you are seriously unwell literally nobody actually cares you are feeling sick and nobody actually cares how quickly you get better either. Like how much actual sympathy do you have for a coworker with a headache haha
That is extremely fair lol
I've been at a few different places, including law firms, and they treat all written communication like it is top secret war plans. No AI of any kind because even tiny hallucinations can cost them a case
Honestly my main gripe with this particular example is the carelessness, not the use of AI to begin with. And in some places I've worked (definitely not all) other employees, including managers, do really care about one another and when they get sick. It makes going to work so much easier when everyone is nice to each other. And when there is genuine sympathy I find people are less likely to call out sick as an excuse for something else because they're not scared to ask for time when they really need it for something personal.
I'm not saying he had to write a novel or anything, but it would be such minimal effort to take a quick look over the email before hitting send. Especially in a case where he's at least trying to show some genuine human empathy and compassion.
I hear you and now I see my bad take
Illuminating example!
I love how you start off by belittling him with "my guy". That really digs in reciprocal engagement.
Your use of sarcasm seems hypocritical to me.