BRENTWOOD, TN — A Williamson County project manager spent four hours Sunday evening configuring a sophisticated automated email auto-reply system before responding manually to every single email it intercepted, sources confirmed Tuesday.

Derek Callahan, 41, activated the auto-reply at 9:14 p.m. after what colleagues described as “a genuinely impressive configuration session” that included custom rules, priority sender exemptions, a tiered response schedule, and a signature block featuring a Bible verse. By 9:31 p.m., Callahan had personally responded to three emails the system had already answered on his behalf.

“The auto-reply handled it, but I just wanted to add a little context,” Callahan told his wife, who had asked him to come to bed. “And then that one from Greg needed a real response because the auto-reply didn’t know about the Thursday situation.”

“At this point the auto-reply is doing more resting than Derek is.”

Callahan’s IT administrator, Priya Nambiar, 34, confirmed the auto-reply logged 47 successful responses between Sunday evening and Tuesday morning. Callahan logged 44 additional manual follow-ups to those same threads, effectively doubling the volume of email traffic in his inbox.

“He built a genuinely elegant system,” Nambiar said. “It’s just that he has absolutely no intention of letting it work.”

Callahan defended his approach, noting that full automation “feels impersonal” and that stewardship of relationships requires a human touch. The auto-reply’s signature verse, which Callahan selected himself, reads: Be still, and know that I am God.

At press time, Callahan had begun composing a follow-up to his own auto-reply to clarify that he was, in fact, available.