Unfortunately due to other matters I don’t have the bandwidth today.
Let’s schedule a follow-up to discuss for a later date so I can give this the focus it warrants.
This is the one. Polite and professional, and also acknowledges the importance of the other person’s viewpoint.
This is why I love working in a blue collar field. Who needs professionalism. “Sorry boss, brain’s fucked today. Explain it at me like I’m an apprentice.”
The coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.
Bonus round: you don’t drink coffee.
I just need a quick bump and I’ll be back in action
What’s the priority on this? I’ve been a little scattered today.
Bear with me, I’ve been running around all day, and I need to catch up and refocus.
I like the first sentence as a standalone reply.
I’m sorry. My brain is slow today and this needs to be done while I am fresh. We can go over it tomorrow.
I am too burnt out today.
I can’t focus on that right now.
I am not functional enough for that.
I don’t even make shit up and I am done with corpo speak. If they can’t accept that, then they can get over it. We can discuss this like humans. If I can get you started, great, but if you want this done right, you will wait.
All of those make the person seem incapable or otherwise unable to fulfill their daily activities/roles. I dunno I think this wouldn’t be great to say unless maybe you were legitimately sick. There are times you just gotta suck it up and get er done.
Not when you are a developer trying to write code for a critical part of the system. Sucking it up isn’t going to make it magically happen and it will be a mess.
Worked for me for the last 20 years shrug
I like to explore all the angles before committing to a decision
This looks like the right one.
Depends on context. If it’s after a bad blunder it’s probably a poor reply, because it makes it seem like you’re trying to cover it up.
“I need my coffee” has never failed me!
“Sorry, I haven’t had my coffee yet.”
It’s 4 PM, Ron.
In the morning, it’s “I’m not fully caffeinated, yet”.
In the hour(s) leading up to lunch, it’s “My blood sugar must be getting low.”
In the hour(s) after lunch, it’s “I’ve had lunch and now I feel like I need a nap.”
In the hour(s) before clocking out for the day, it’s “It’s been a long day and my eyes / brain need a rest.”
This is basically science. I just need to apply for some funding.
To be fair, 4 PM was usually the time for a coffee break back when I worked in an office.
“Sorry, I haven’t had my
coffeecocaine yet.”“Sorry, you don’t pay me enough for
coffeecocaine yet.”
“Sorry, I don’t function well on Mondays”
“But today is Wednesday”
“I call it third Monday”
And tomorrow is before-friday.
“Thank you for your patience”
(I just recreated the original because that one is jpegged to hell and back. I used draw.io (used the original image as background), then exported as SVG, jammed it through SVGOMG, and then let ChatGPT do one last optimization because the font stuff was a bit too much, removed the whitespace and comments - boom: 700kb SVG)
Sorry, I have a case of the Mondays!
I believe you get your ass kicked for saying something like that
Not if you say it on a Thursday. With a gallon of coffee in hand.
“let’s pencil in a session about that tomorrow morning”
“Co-pilot, make up an excuse for me.”
I am unavoidably detained due to furious diarrhea
*furrious
“Just back from annual leave and trying to get upto speed” or “just had the closing meeting on an old project. Once I’m fully read in on this I will be able to take it on”
