Office email goodness

I entered the white collar workplace world on the cusp of email becoming the norm. It's hard to believe that once upon a time email did not exist. Instead signed correspondence via inter office envelope was the standard. Now such missives are rare and generally high level because the high level people entered the workforce when email was not the norm and have still to adapt.

Email has been a force multiplier for the office. You can do so, so much more with email than you can with phone calls, memos etc. You can track things, tasks things, attach things and so forth, Email is the biggest cog in the info revolution.

Anyway, email comes with its own code of conduct. THIS IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING AND RUDE for example. You get an email like that you instantly think 'what a prick' (or that they left the Capslock on).

Another code of conduct email use thing is the Reply All. If you get an organisation or building wide email, representing hundreds to thousands of users, you never, ever Reply All. It's just not done. It's like someone yelling in a lift or at the urinal. Or one of those mentally challenged people screaming at a bus driver that he is a cvnt because he's two minutes behind on schedule.

Recently at my work a building wide email went out from the building maintenance lads explaining there was something up with the environmental controls and that the temp was a little cold in spots. It recommended people consider jumpers etc.

Fair enough, nice of them to let us all know. Trouble was the email address for the entire building was a string of numbers and characters - not readily recognisable as an uber address.

So ... naturally about half a dozen people replied all to said message. They ranged from 'thanks for the info' through to 'how dare you tell me what to wear, I am insulted' (seriously). Then the 'please stop replying all' begging emails started.

The best one was a combo of SHOUTING and Reply All where it simply said 'STOP REPLYING TO ALL !!!!'

Yes, that's right. They were telling people not to Reply All whilst replying to all. To everyone in the building. Which includes the most senior members of the org.

I bet Mr Shouty in particular is thanking his lucky stars half of them still don't know how to use email.