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.
“Thank you for your patience”
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
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.
(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)
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 can assure you of my intellectual capacity but there is a severe incompatibility with cognitive functions on this day.
“Sorry, I don’t function well on Mondays”
“But today is Wednesday”
“I call it third Monday”
“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.
