h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of my coworkers has her belly button pierced. Everyone knows this because she hit reply-all instead of reply to a system update e-mail and said “hey when you get a chance swing by and I’ll show you my new belly button ring.” Worse she tried to recall it. I don’t know why but that never works.

The original e-mail was a daily system update status that went to everyone who has anything to do with the financial management systems. I don’t know how many people are on this list but my entire department certainly is.

I’m not entirely sure that reply all shouldn’t be deactivated.

From time to time some mass e-mail will go out to the wrong list. Most people delete it but a select few decide to hit reply and asked to be taken off the list. Inevitably someone hits reply all and says to stop hitting reply all. Then someone responds to that with “you just did it too”. Then the smartass brigade wades in and starts forwarding it around with clever remarks attached.

The last time this happened once it had all finally died down, someone who had apparently been out of the office for the initial fun hit reply all once again to remind everyone of the proper use of reply all. This person had their return receipt request turned on. I checked the org chart, saw that she was some admin assistant, and hit “accept”. Hey it was apparently important for her to know that I (and everyone else in the company) had read her pithy e-mail.

Good times.

Well you have to admit that people should check before they send/click.

And it would make life so much more boring if people just clicked "reply" all the time.

I so appreciate when they put the recievers list in the Bcc field... so if anyone *does* hit reply all, it still just comes back to the sender.

Never liked the Bcc field. Means you've no idea ewho else has got it so if you need to forward it on, you could be hitting the same people.

I thought there was some way to restrict an e-mail so it can’t be forwarded. I tried it just to see and it seems to involve installing something that I’m not entirely sure IT would like to me install on my work computer.

I once got an e-mail from one of our auditors letting me and everyone else on the e-mail know that her sister was some kind of financial advisor and would be contacting us. This would be the auditor from the public accounting firm that does our SEC audit. I thought at the time that not only was it wildly inappropriate for her to share her client list with her sister for the purpose of non-firm related personal solicitation but she didn’t BCC it so now I know what other clients this particular auditor works for. I never said anything but someone else must have because I never got this phone call.

I think (touch formica) that I've learnt the long and hard lesson about reading and re-reading emails before sending them, so it's been a long time since I sent anything to someone I shouldn't have.

But I still get that sudden feeling that my stomach has dissolved when I think that I've sent the wrong email. That usually happens to me about twice a week.

Someone told me that our autonomic nervous systems are wired up to keep us alert for tigers; these days, all that stress gets channelled into office life.

Gif

Just google clare swire for the world's worst snafu. Poor woman.

yum!

>From time to time some mass e-mail will go out to the wrong list. Most people delete it but a select few decide to hit reply and asked to be taken off the list. Inevitably someone hits reply all and says to stop hitting reply all. Then someone responds to that with “you just did it too”. Then the smartass brigade wades in and starts forwarding it around with clever remarks attached. <

Wish this happened at my place. It might be amusing the first time

Not a snafu as such, but at a company I once worked for the accountant left under a cloud. Her last act before leaving was to circulate by e-mail the salary details of every employee. That caused *severe* ructions.

I like open salary negotiations I think people should talk to each other.