Woman uses ChatGPT to write email to boss about quitting: ‘Cannot be sad and poor for another month’

‘It’s perfect,’ one viewer joked

A woman has shared the amusing email that artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT created for her after she asked for help crafting a “professional” letter to her boss about quitting her job.

Mari, who goes by the username @sillyyerba on TikTok, uploaded a video about the ChatGPT response this week, in which she laughed as she read out a line from the AI-generated note that read: “I cannot be sad and poor for another month.”

In the clip, Mari began by explaining that she’d recently submitted her two-weeks notice letter to her boss informing her that she’d be quitting her job. However, according to the TikToker, her boss had asked Mari to continue working until 8 June.

In response to the request, Mari said she planned to ask ChatGPT for help creating a response “pretty much saying I can’t be sad and poor for another month” but in a “professional” way.

“So I’m gonna have ChatGPT write an email response of me pretty much saying I can’t be sad and poor for another month in a professional way,” she said. “So I put in the prompt: ‘Write a professional email saying I can’t be sad and poor for another month replying to this email’ and then in quotes I put in my manager’s email and this is what it gave me.”

Mari then read out the response she received from the chatbot, which began: “Thank you for your email and for providing notice of my final working day being Saturday 6 May.”

After expressing her appreciation for the opportunity to work with the team, the email then said Mari regrettably could not “extend [her] time beyond this date”.

The email continued in a professional manner, with the AI including a line in which Mari acknowledged her boss would be “open to a longer transition time,” but that, “due to personal circumstances,” Mari would be “unable to continue working beyond 6 May”. “I hope you can understand my position,” the chatbot wrote.

As she began to laugh hysterically, Mari then read out the next sentence of the email, which read: “As much as I value my time here, I cannot be sad and poor for another month.”

ChatGPT then transitioned back into a professional tone, with the AI expressing Mari’s hope that “this does not cause any inconvenience to the team and that we can end things on a positive note”.

“Thank you again for your understanding and support during my time here,” the message concluded. “Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to ensure a smooth transition.”

After reading out the candid email suggestion, Mari jokingly asked: “Should I send that as is?”

In the caption of the video, Mari added: “Life’s too short to be sad and poor.”

The video, which has been viewed more than eight million times, has been met with amusement from viewers, with many joking that the chatbot could not come up with a better way of phrasing the sentiment.

“ChatGPT: ‘There’s literally no other way to say that, sorry,’” one person wrote, while another said: “Even ChatGPT is like: ‘I’m just gonna tell them. I’ll put fluff around it. But I’m gonna be blunt. You indeed can’t be sad and poor another month.’”

“It’s perfect,” someone else jokingly claimed.

Others encouraged Mari to send the letter without removing the sentence, with one viewer writing: “Send that email exactly word for word. It’s perfect.”

“Please send it,”another person wrote along with a laughing face emoji.

In a follow-up TikTok, Mari revealed that she didn’t send the original email created by ChatGPT, and instead directed the AI to make the email sound “more human”. She also confirmed that she removed the line about being “sad and poor”.

The Independent has contacted Mari for comment.