CHICAGO, IL — Brightstone Digital Marketing terminated senior account manager Derek Walsh, 34, on Tuesday after their new workplace efficiency AI determined that Walsh's primary job function over the past eighteen months consisted entirely of forwarding client emails while adding "Per my last email" to the subject line.

The AI audit, conducted by Workday's new Productivity Insights module, tracked Walsh's digital activity and found that 89% of his billable hours involved receiving emails, waiting 2.3 hours, then forwarding them to the appropriate team members with minor subject line modifications and the addition of phrases like "Please see below," "Following up on this," or "Wanted to make sure this was on your radar."

"Derek was essentially functioning as a very expensive email delay mechanism," explained Chief Human-Resource Deprecator Silas Vane during Walsh's termination meeting. "Our AI realized we could achieve identical outcomes by implementing a simple auto-forward rule with a random 1-4 hour delay. The client experience remains unchanged, but our overhead decreases by $73,000 annually."

Walsh, who had been with the company for six years, initially disputed the findings. "I do way more than forward emails," he protested. "I also schedule meetings, provide strategic guidance, and maintain client relationships." However, further AI analysis revealed that his "strategic guidance" consisted primarily of phrases copied from Harvard Business Review articles, and his "relationship maintenance" involved sending birthday emails generated by LinkedIn's automated reminder system.

The AI's report noted that Walsh's meeting scheduling could be handled by Calendly, his client check-ins were indistinguishable from ChatGPT-generated templates, and his quarterly reports were largely reformatted versions of data already available in the company's dashboard.

"The algorithm was actually quite impressed by Derek's efficiency," Vane noted. "He had successfully automated himself without realizing it. The AI simply completed the process by removing the human element."

Brightstone has since replaced Walsh's position with a Gmail filter and a Slack workflow. Early reports suggest client satisfaction has remained stable, with one client noting that the automated system "responds faster and uses fewer buzzwords."

Walsh is currently seeking new employment, though his LinkedIn profile's job description of "Strategic Communication Facilitator" has been flagged by multiple HR AIs as "potentially automatable."