Around the office (part 1 of ?)

Today's topic: Office e-mails

If you've ever worked in an office, especially an office tied to a government organization, then you are probably going to relate with the following statements. If you have not worked in an office and plan to, you'll find out about this soon enough. If you don't plan on working in an office, then read it anyway to find out what us "office people" deal with.

Just about every day there are office e-mails that circulate amongst the various staff members of that particular office. Most are harmless and involve correspondence between 2 or 3 people who need to share important information. This is not problematic. However, there is a type of e-mail that also gets circulated around that just really grinds my chair wheels.

This e-mail is the "Everyone" e-mail. This is an e-mail that contains vital, essential office information such as, "We're having a sale on used toilet brushes on the 2nd floor basement! Hurry quick! They're going fast!" Or else they'll contain messages such as, "The ultrahyper system in the 4th floor office was marginalized with a 4% return ratio on rationalized data. The IT team is currently working to retrofit the prospectus and the system is expected to be functioning normally within a millenium." These messages really only have appeal to, and really only need to be sent to, a few people. But, whoever is sending out the e-mails apparently thinks that the names of these people are "Everyone" and types that into the "To:" area of Outlook Express. Then, the chain reaction begins.

First, the e-mail is sent to everyone. Most people see the subject line (e.g. Important, Vital Information to Office Safety!) and immediately delete it. But there are a few people (whom the e-mail was originally intended for) who read it. Then they suddenly realize that the "Everyone" in the subject line really meant, "Just you, e-mail reader," and then they forward it to "Everyone" AGAIN! But just to add to the fun, they add some other peoples' names to the e-mail to make sure that some of their closest friends and family outside the organziation can be "in the know" when it comes to their work. So the e-mail gets sent to everyone again.

Then, as with the first e-mail, most people will notice the subject line: "FWD:" and immediately delete the e-mail. But then those people outside the organization who received the e-mail receive it and read it. Then they, being overly concerned with the office's information circulation system, RE-SEND the e-mail, just in case that past message didn't manage to get to everyone in the office. But they don't just send it back, they add a little tag line to the top like, "Thanks for the info, Jane Doe!" (Of course the person's name wouldn't be Jane Doe, unless the respondant really wanted to keep that person's name anonymous, which would probably be better served saying, "Thanks for the info, anonymous information heralder!")

By this time, the people who are included in that "Everyone" tag line are getting a bit upset about receiving the same information multiple times (once was enough...). So this causes the receivers of the e-mail to try to go insane learning programming so they can send viruses to the people who resend "Everyone" e-mails. Now, I can understand why some people would be tempted to send "Everyone" e-mails multiple times. I'm sure somewhere in the vacant hall that is their brain that they believe each person's definition of "Everyone" is different, especially when it comes to standardized Outlook Express settings. When we think of "Everyone," especially in an office setting, we might think of that term meaning everyone in the office, or everyone on the floor, or everyone I talk to on a regular basis, or everyone within a 2-foot radius of me. So, they might have assumed that the original sender's "Everyone" meant only a handfull of specially select people whom were destined to receive important information and spread it to us lesser information gatherers. So, not wanting us to be left "out of the loop," and out of the generosity of their hearts, they resend the message, just in case.

But this "Everyone" e-mail isn't the only "Everyone" e-mail out there. There are others too. I think the ones that are more annoying than the useless information e-mails are what I like to call the "Whiny Me" e-mails. As the name suggests, the e-mails consist of one person announcing to the whole office that they spilled some sort of fluid on their keyboard and, "for some strange reason," it stopped working. That and they demand that IT get on it "right away" lest the office get swept up in a tide of inactivity since everyone else's work depends on theirs.

But in all honesty, those e-mails aren't sent out. It just seems like they are. They really say, "I can't access my server! I need my server! We were supposed to go to lunch this afternoon! How am I supposed to get my work done without my server!?!?!?" And so IT, being the highly-trained, elite response force that they are, sits around and drinks coffee. Then when the caffeine rush kicks in, they start drinking coffee faster. It isn't until that second caffeine rush kicks in that they actually start reading the 5,000,000 complaints that came into their office within the last minute. Then, at lightning speed, they immediately begin sending e-mails telling the people that they're going to have to assign the problem to someone else.

And, of course, this is all going on in "Everyone" e-mails. But there is a measure of enjoyment that exists within these e-mails. You get your own mini soap opera while you're in your office. "Will John's e-mail get transferred by Jane to Janet? Will Jane transfer it back to Steve? Will John ever make the lunch date with his server? Find out on the next episode of, THE E-MAILS OF OUR LIVES!"

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some e-mails that I have to reply to.