When you've spent a large portion of the email calling people dickheads and assholes.
My coworker decided that it was a good idea to forward an email to the CLIENT, which included a conversation with me. He called another coworker, who happens to work in a different country, an dickhead. He also added the gem of "make the beast with two backsing Colombians". Of course he forwarded the email to the client in COLOMBIA!! Now the client definitely wants his head and the simple fact that my company has already wasted a shitload of money in moving me down to Chile is the only reason I'm not standing right next to him on the chopping block. I can't post this at all anywhere else, so you guys get to hear the story.
Live and learn.
That sucks.
A better rule is never say anything in an email that you wouldn't mind being public. Makes email boring, but...
Columbians can read?
I keed.... I keed
Reply All is the other thing that destroys people
Email will be the destruction of many. Rule 1. make it short, and second write what you want everyone to read. [leo] are everywhere and once something is sent, there's no getting it back.
[popcorn]
Quote from: lethe on May 24, 2012, 04:02:38 PM
Reply All is the other thing that destroys people
Agreed...this is often deadly...
especially if the originating idiot buries the customer's email address in the 25 name distro
and does not note in their text that the client is cc'd in the distro
and sends the email out asking why the client hasn't seen their "xyz" yet
Rule 1: When writing ANYTHING, write it as if it will appear on the cover of the NY Times. You never know whose going to read it.
Rule 2: never write when you can speak, never speak when you can nod, never nod when you can wink, etc......
Follow these two rules and you'll reduce your risk of finding trouble. And they keep you off of facebook.
I have co workers who forward a whole conversation to a client. I always like when they have been tallking about the client or saying something like "give the option it only cost us $19 but we charge them $325".
My past in the email fiasco is relatively small, One jab about me "not being Colombian" and a sarcastic comment about my ability to change a whole solution in the minute I had access to the document. He was the one that made it all personal, but because he was having the conversation with me, then I'm guilty by association. This pretty much means that I'm not getting promoted this year and it will be an uphill battle for the rest of my career in this company. Right now I can look forward to finishing my relocation and then deciding if suffering through it would be preferable if they give me the opportunity to move back to Puerto Rico and earn a better than average existance. The client has escalated the matter, but up to now, my boss has not said anything directly to me. My real evaluation will not come until early next year and they will be asking me to renew my stay, I'm one of the few truly Spanish speakers in the company with this type of experience. This only means that at this moment they need me more than I need them, but it sucks that this stupid email puts me in a disadvantage.
That sucks, man. I'm sure you'll never make a mistake like that again. Hope it all works out for you.
Unfortunately, you can't always protect yourself anyway... Facebook, YouTube, the internet in general is a SNITCH! My brother in law loves to bring his flip cam to parties or any kind of gathering and I hate acting like a celebrity on vacation but "don't point that thing at me, dude!!"
My comments were really not out of line, but because I was "involved" in the conversation I am now guilty. I have no chance to clear my name.
Indeed...an idiot made you complicit by merely presuming he had that level of familiarity with you
your unfortunate failure was to not "reply all" with a repudiation of his cynical remarks
you will know better next time >:(
I learned the dangers of 'reply all' the hard way as well, and while it was potentially damaging, it turned into a legendary and hilarious tale. I basically called a friend a derogatory term which was to us an inside joke, but it went to every single person in the company including the upper administration, about 80 people. One person took offense and wrote me a nasty email lecturing me on work environment conduct and cc'd my bosses on it. Turns out my bosses liked me a lot better than her, and also thought it was hilarious, and told me to act like it never happened and her request to have me fired was ignored. The thing that made it particularly entertaining in retrospect is that after realizing my mistake, I sent a followup email to everyone that said, "Wow, that just wen't to everyone, didn't it . . ."
Young aol days.. I started a mass mail "war" of about 100+ people.. literally thousands of emails sent in a day from reply all.. lost a couple "aol friends" cause of it. -shrug- only one was hot..
I winced just reading the subject title.
:P
Quote from: duccarlos on May 24, 2012, 03:14:23 PM
The people on this board are a bunch of squids who couldn't ride their way out of a paper bag. I'm ashamed to know any of you.
This right here should be another lesson ;)
Quote from: Dwead Piwate Woberts on May 25, 2012, 07:52:04 PM
I put mind control devices into orbit with the intention of enslaving humanity.
indeed, many lessons
Quote from: Dwead Piwate Woberts on May 25, 2012, 07:52:04 PM
This right here should be another lesson ;)
Ain't that the truth...
My company also has internal instant messaging and I have found many things I have typed thinking I was answering a personal question showing up in official communication.
It's no wonder I just want to close the blinds, shut out the outside world and drink alone.
Quote from: superjohn on May 26, 2012, 01:29:43 PM
My company also has internal instant messaging and I have found many things I have typed thinking I was answering a personal question showing up in official communication.
It's no wonder I just want to close the blinds, shut out the outside world and drink alone.
We also have an internal IM, but it stores all conversations in Outlook.
this was years ago..
buddy at an old job, the system administrator no less, sent an email with a picture of a young lady rudely using 8-10 hotdogs in ways they were never meant to be used.
Mistyped a name in the to: field which autocompleted, and without really paying attention ended up sending the mail to the head of HR.
I don't have "Reply All" on my client. And I think that's great.
I get 80+ work emails each day and the thing I hate most is the "reply all" button. On sensitive issues, people at my level do something that seems to be quite rare now, we pick up the telephone and have real conversations. For some people that feel they need to document everything and CYA (cover your a$$), email seems to be their only form of communication. Sarcasm and innuendo are hard to read in emails. Live and learn people.
Ciao!
Quote from: r_ciao on May 27, 2012, 03:28:10 PM
I get 80+ work emails each day and the thing I hate most is the "reply all" button. On sensitive issues, people at my level do something that seems to be quite rare now, we pick up the telephone and have real conversations. For some people that feel they need to document everything and CYA (cover your a$$), email seems to be their only form of communication. Sarcasm and innuendo are hard to read in emails. Live and learn people.
Ciao!
My boss is like that.
You'll tell him something face to face, and he'll say "I need you to email that to me" [laugh]
We all know what that means though: "Email it to me so I can use it against you at a later date."
...so I'll just tell him something important, then "forget" to email it later (hey, I was busy, you know?). Then when he wants to "push the shit down hill," when something goes wrong...well...woops...no email chain to link it to. Pity.
Quote from: r_ciao on May 27, 2012, 03:28:10 PM
I get 80+ work emails each day and the thing I hate most is the "reply all" button.
My favorite is when a big one, usually an FYI situation, goes out to a large group of folks throughout the corporation (most of which I don't know) and each idiot that responds (usually a response nobody would give a rat's ass about) also hits the "reply all" button.
[bang]
then there is what I call "the festival of morons"
an email accidentally goes out to the entire division distro....
and everyone sends a reply-all saying "take me off this distro"
which is then followed by a second wave of "reply-alls"
telling people to please stop hitting "reply all"
I find that recall feature on Outlook to be funny. Oops! Sent to everyone? Recall it. It still shows up, but with a line striked through it. It is not invisible. Dorks. It just makes the whole thing more noticeable.
Quote from: RAT900 on May 28, 2012, 09:06:12 AM
then there is what I call "the festival of morons"
an email accidentally goes out to the entire division distro....
and everyone sends a reply-all saying "take me off this distro"
which is then followed by a second wave of "reply-alls"
telling people to please stop hitting "reply all"
http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2004/04/08/109626.aspx (http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2004/04/08/109626.aspx)
Quote from: RAT900 on May 28, 2012, 09:06:12 AM
then there is what I call "the festival of morons"
an email accidentally goes out to the entire division distro....
and everyone sends a reply-all saying "take me off this distro"
which is then followed by a second wave of "reply-alls"
telling people to please stop hitting "reply all"
[laugh] THis happens at least twice a month at my company. My work group and I keep track of how many "reply all" responses occur.
Quote from: duccarlos on May 25, 2012, 09:55:07 AM
My past in the email fiasco is relatively small, One jab about me "not being Colombian" and a sarcastic comment about my ability to change a whole solution in the minute I had access to the document. He was the one that made it all personal, but because he was having the conversation with me, then I'm guilty by association. This pretty much means that I'm not getting promoted this year and it will be an uphill battle for the rest of my career in this company. Right now I can look forward to finishing my relocation and then deciding if suffering through it would be preferable if they give me the opportunity to move back to Puerto Rico and earn a better than average existance. The client has escalated the matter, but up to now, my boss has not said anything directly to me. My real evaluation will not come until early next year and they will be asking me to renew my stay, I'm one of the few truly Spanish speakers in the company with this type of experience. This only means that at this moment they need me more than I need them, but it sucks that this stupid email puts me in a disadvantage.
Don't worry duccarlos, the client was probably pissed and looking for heads to roll and with this fast paced times, I give it another week and everyone has forgotten it. [beer]
Quote from: RAT900 on May 28, 2012, 09:06:12 AM
then there is what I call "the festival of morons"
an email accidentally goes out to the entire division distro....
and everyone sends a reply-all saying "take me off this distro"
which is then followed by a second wave of "reply-alls"
telling people to please stop hitting "reply all"
I copied and pasted an entire week of these emails into a word document and published it. It is great reading.
m
Quote from: Little Monkey Toes on May 28, 2012, 09:16:47 AM
I find that recall feature on Outlook to be funny. Oops! Sent to everyone? Recall it. It still shows up, but with a line striked through it. It is not invisible. Dorks. It just makes the whole thing more noticeable.
if you read the recall notification first then the original e-mail is gone. this only works for your org though. the e-mail that you accidentally sent to your customer doens't get recalled. they just see that you realized you're an idiot.
You mean that my coworker is an idiot.
Quote from: duccarlos on May 29, 2012, 08:08:22 AM
You mean that my coworker is an idiot.
in your case, yes.
I hate it when the Reply to All feature is used for two people trying to hash out a solution. We had a shipment get caught in customs last week, and by the time the broker let any of us know there was a problem (a week after it got stuck) we were practically right on our deadline. There were 20 people on the e-mail chain and two people spent 15 e-mails arguing about whether or not a form was needed and who was going to pay a $200 processing fee.
In the "stupid stuff said to clients" vein, though, I've got a great story from my call center days. We had a project supporting long-haul wireless equipment, and one of the techs felt a little put off by an Indian gentleman with a rather thick accent asking to double check with the supervisor on whether something could be done. The guy muted his wireless headset but not the phone (forgetting that he had a wired headset plugged in for trainees to listen in on calls), and did about two minutes of his best impressions of Apu from the Simpsons instead of actually talking to the supervisor. If you can believe it, the customer didn't believe him when he said that he's spoken with the supervisor and the customer's request had been denied.
Hopefully the final chapter in the saga...
Got called into the boss' office where he was on a conference call with HR. They gave me a written warning letter that will be in my record "permanently". i don't care cause I don't see myself working for this company in the long term. The coworker was dragged in soon after. He was in there for hours and did not show up to work today. Not sure if he'll ever come back.
so basically, they have something formal that they can say to the customer that they did something in response to their concerns and yet doesn't really jeopardize anything as it were...
Only the fact that I'm officially npot getting promoted. I want to see how they will tap dance around this when it comes time for me to renew my contract next year.
So what was the "warning"?....
don't let coworkers send you stupid emails?
Quote from: RAT900 on June 05, 2012, 11:40:30 AM
So what was the "warning"?....
don't let stupid coworkers send you emails?
Fixed that for ya, Rat.
BC.
Letter warning that goes into my "file".
Quote from: lethe on May 24, 2012, 04:02:38 PM
Reply All is the other thing that destroys people
Guilty. My story isn't that entertaining, except that nearly the entire office was copied on me telling someone to perform an act with himself that surely would have required better than average flexibility. [bang]
Quote from: redxblack on June 07, 2012, 06:30:51 AM
Guilty. My story isn't that entertaining, except that nearly the entire office was copied on me telling someone to perform an act with himself that surely would have required better than average flexibility. [bang]
kissing his shin?
Quote from: KnightofNi on June 07, 2012, 07:21:51 AM
kissing his shin?
no...licking his own back in a lascivious manner you silly goose!
The act of sending out an email where I work has become a task itself.
-Certain shortcuts no longer work to send, reply, or forward emails.
-The distribution lists are hidden through 3-4 clicks in Outlook.
-Can't use auto-complete for names/addresses as it's been disabled.
-If an email is being sent outside the company, you have a pop-up show up after hitting send where you must check a box, then hit "OK".
-If an email is going to more than 10 internal people, the same pop-up shows up after hitting send and you must check the box.
-If an email has an attachment....you get the idea.
It could be worse, but I don't want to think of how. :-X