Monday, December 29, 2008

A Response

The little rant below is something I wrote but did not send in response to some name calling that got out of hand.

My Dad has a habit of sending lots of political email and spam and he doesn't think before he sends it. Most of the people he sends stuff to have differing opinions and spend most of their time waiting for the grim reaper.

They don't really understand all this new-fangled inter-mail thingy stuff. That's why they feel no shame in hitting "reply to all" when they feel like telling Big Lou what an idiot he is.

And then someone who agrees with Big Lou also replies to all and the next thing you know my inbox starts filling up with crap.

I wanted very badly to send this to Big Lou and a couple of idiots who were flaming each other but then good sense kicked in and I decided to just post it here. This is what I almost said:


OK gang,

Let's talk a little about email etiquette.

Here are some helpful hints that might just put an end to this kind of thing.

Rule 1: Always remember that Email is just like regular mail, only faster, much easier to track and it never, ever, goes away.

Rule 2: In view of rule number 1, never send unsolicited, potentially inflammatory, or pornographic material to anyone. Ever. Leave that to teenagers who don't know any better.

Rule 3: If someone sends you something that violates rule 2 you have several options. You can

A. add them to your blocked sender / spam list and keep their messages out of your inbox permanently,

B. delete whatever they send unread or

C. start what's called a flame war and respond via email. A or B are the best choices. C, again, is the option for teenagers.

Rule 4: If you feel absolutely compelled to choose option C and call the sender a slack-jawed fathead you can do it in one of the following ways:

A. Get in your car, drive to their house, knock on the door and say "You, sir or madam, are a slack-jawed fat head. Good day."

B. Pick up the phone, call the sender and say "You, sir or madam, are a slack-jawed fat head. Good day."

C. Select the "Reply to sender" option on your email and reply TO THE SENDER ONLY, telling him that he's a slack-jawed fat head.

Rule 5: IT IS NEVER, EVER ACCEPTABLE TO SELECT "REPLY TO ALL" AND DRAG PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT INTERESTED INTO AN ARGUMENT FOR SLACK-JAWED FAT HEADS!

Keep these rules in mind and we'll soon realize Rodney King's dream of all getting along.

Good day.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, my mom ha older fiends who do that too, and it has ruined some friendships. I typically just don't read forwards; who has the time anyway?

Evil Twin's Wife said...

I loathe the reply to all feature and forwards and getting email from someone I don't even know calling the original emailer out for forwarding something clearly untrue on Snopes. I DON'T CARE, PEOPLE!! LOL.

tiff said...

The best example I have of thsi kind of thing comes from about 10 years ago when cc:mail was the big thing in e-mail at my company....and someone sent out a very specific e-mail about a very specific thing to EVERYONE at hte company by mistake.

Then about 100 of THOSE people replied to tall to ask why they got that e-mail in the first place, even AFTER the company sent out a 'do not sontinue to respond to this e-mail' e-mail.

Final count was something over a MILLION e-mails were generated by one person's mistake and lots of boneheads' responses. Astounding, really.

Jorge said...

Te company that I worked for up until yesterday had about 60000 people.

Every now and then we'd get a spam attack and people would to the exact same thing.

I never thought about how many responses that would generate, but it's got to be ridiculous.`

Kathleen said...

You should have sent it. Or teach Big Lou how to do a blind copy.

Oh yeah, two years ago, we had something very similar to Tiff's experience at work. The number of people replying to all saying "Don't include me on this e-mail." had me screaming at my computer...and e-mailing my brother back and forth as he was getting the same e-mails and we vented our respective spleens by bitching about how friggin' stupid people are.