Co-worker Hans is very proud of himself. “976!”, he exclaims suddenly.

“Huh?” I reply. “What do you mean?”

“Only 976 unread emails left in my inbox! I am under a thousand now!”

“Does that include tickets, monitoring alerts and spam?”

“Hell no, I remove those as they arrive.”

I barely miss a beat. “Well, if you now add those 44 that are in your Todo folder in our team mailbox you’re back to a thousand.”

He shoots me a frown over the rim of his screen but keeps his mouth shut. I didn’t even mention the 50+ in another team mailbox he’s responsible for.