office: Pet Peeve #732
If I may take a moment to rant… Here’s a clipped image of an e-mail sent out this morning regarding a going away luncheon for an employee that’s leaving. From the blurry mass next to To: and the opening “Everyone,” you can see it was sent to a lot of people. The sender asked people to respond and let him know whether they’re in or out. What most normal people who’ve been using Microsoft Outlook long enough would do–and probably already did–is use the keystroke combo Ctrl-R to reply to the message.
But if things were that simple, I wouldn’t have a rant, would I? Nope, even though many people here have been using computers since well before the mouse input device existed, they still haven’t assimilated keyboard commands. So instead of using the keyboard to reply, they click the button. “But hey Brian,” you might say, “there’s a Reply button right there in the upper-left portion of the message window!” And you would be correct! Full marks to you for passing the observation portion of the challenge. But for some reason when it comes to the execution section of the exam, people here bypass that button and go straight for the Reply All button instead. So now 50 people are all getting messages–with the entire previous message still underneath, but that’s a completely different rant–with “I’m in.” and “Count me in.” and “Me too.” and… “I’m in.” I’m just waiting for someone (not me) to snap and send a reply to everyone asking everyone to stop sending their replies to everyone. 😈
I normally use the BCC: function when sending something to my team, or I make it clear when and if a response is required. But it doesn’t seem to matter, if someone can send their response to everyone involved, even when those other people don’t need to know about it… they will. Reply to All has easily surpassed High Priority as my latest e-mail-related office pet peeve. </rant>
Ok, back to work. Is it the weekend yet?
I rather think that this would be quickly followed by Pet Peeve # 733: people who respond to a broad-banded message by changing the subject to something completely unrelated, and yet still hit “Reply All.”
There’s nothing like sending out a message to the entire office about an “Upcoming Luncheon!” only to be copied on a response like, “Hey, Kyle! Did you score with that hot chick you were all over at the bar the other night?”
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On Veteran’s Day, somebody sent out a really sappy, hand-over-the-heart, uber-patriotic message about our troops. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate our troops. My brother was in Viet Nam. But bear in mind that there are 35,000 people in my company, many of whom are not in this country, who got that messaage and the 75 or so replies that started out with “Thanks”, “Right on”, “You said it”, and soon degenerated into “STOP HITTING REPLY ALL”, “IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE ALL THESE MESSAGES THEN YOU’RE JUST A COMMIE”, etc. Eventually, they shut down the mail server and the entire company was without e-mail for half a day. As far as I know, the idiot that first sent out the message suffered no consequences whatsoever.
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Pet Peeve #734:
People who respond to all, leave the subject in place, but talk about an entirely different subject!
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We have spam wars at work. People reply all (with 30,000 recipients) and then people send reply alls asking them to stop replying to all. It goes on and on and on for days sometimes. Occasionally, there are angry or even funny replies.
I have a rant, too. Every time a new technology or system is put into place, you will always have some who are resistant to it – either they don’t like change at all, or they think it will increase their work load, decrease their privacy, etc., etc. So far, pretty standard, and we have all felt this way from time to time. But there is always at least one person who uses staff training time to either vent directly about the new technology/system, or worse, use the passive-aggressive method of asking a $#!±load of stupid questions, most often hypotheticals of far-fetched scenarios (designed by the asker to show that the new technology/system WILL FAIL, as far as they are concerned). This is especially tragic when the person asking the hypotheticals is a management-level individual who was nevertheless thwarted in his/her efforts to forestall the placement of the new system/technology, and is therefore reduced to the useless sniping at proxies, e.g., contracted trainers who haven’t a clue about the office politics behind the new system/technology implacement.
Sorry. Fun day at the office.
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Someone sent out a request for ideas for the office ‘holiday’ party. To 70 people. Lots of reply all’s:
“I like Lonestar Stakehouse. How about we go there?”
“I want to go someplace with a dance floor. I don’t care where.”
“Why don’t we do a catered deal? We could bring Papa John’s pizza in.”
and the oh so useful
“I don’t care where we go except I don’t want to go to the place we went last year.”
This went on for days and days.
I felt like hitting a reply all myself with “SHUTUP!SHUTUP!SHUTUP!”
Oh, and, yeah, that’s what I want to do–dance with my coworkers. 🙄
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Gracious, you do need a weekend. A few e-mail replies doesn’t bother me at all, and sometimes it’s nice to see who’s going to a function. If it was more than just a few and a constant barrage, I can see your point, but sometimes I wonder if you’re not wound a little too tightly. Go get laid, ya screwball. 😛
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