Monday, October 24, 2005

No need to reply...

OK, it's been over a month and not single peep from me. I guess there is no need to have earth shaking things to report in order to blog a note here and there. Frankly, I have been just too stressed and busy to do what I really want to do, and that includes blogging. So if I still have my 1 or 2 readers out there, I am back!

Coming up....."PET PEEVE" for the day. Admit it, you all know these people. The "Reply to all" people. What is their problem? I just don't get it. Someone sends out an email to a huge distribution list, OK, that's very efficient. Then you start getting the replies.........Then the replies to the replies.........Then angry people who think they are very intelligent begin sending indignant replies to the entire distribution list saying please do not reply to all you idiots! (While they are replying to all) THEN you get the answer from the originator of the email saying .......please reply only to me, do not reply to all. When you reply to all, everyone on the list gets your response. Of course that sets off another course of replies. You know, things like"I'm sorry that I replied to all" which in turn makes the angry intelligent people come back with a reply to all that is something like "PLEASE STOP REPLYING TO ALL YOU ARE BACKING UP MY EMAIL BOX!" (While they are replying to all). Of course you get the ones that are clueless. They respond to all with something like this............"I keep getting these emails to......... (whatever the original email wanted).........I don't think I am supposed to be getting these emails. Am I in charge of this? I don't think I am. I think these are being sent to me in error. Why am I getting these?" EARTH TO IDIOT!

We had one chain of email events at our office one day that if I were to say "Rolf's Replies" today, everyone would crack up laughing. Since our company is global, sometimes our distribution lists go to thousands of people around the world. This one guy in Sweden was so confused by the original email and then the replies to all that you could literally follow his initial confusion to his utter terror at being bombarded by email.

The problem was this.........He got the original email.....he replied to all "Why did I get this?"...then he began to get other "reply to all" messages from other people........He began to answer each person that replied to all with another reply to all question "Why are you sending this to me?".......it began to roll way out of control because he then began to get the replies from the angry intelligent people that were directed at him. You can really tell when an intelligent person is totally stressed when they reply to all with this type of message....."STOP STOP STOP!!!PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO ALL!!! THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS!!! IF YOU DON'T STOP I AM GOING TO SEND SOMEONE TO KILL YOU!!!" I would say that that is a Type A person.....I have a simple solution for you angry intelligent persons......DELETE.

It's not like we haven't had email around for enough time that this is a new-fangled idea. It seems to me that it is a basic (very basic) piece of knowledge. I have never thought I was an overly complex or intelligent individual (for you Shawn), but I do understand the difference between "reply" and "reply to all". Somehow, I am certain that Bill Gates would find this extremely funny. He knew what would happen when he decided to make "Reply to all" an option.

4 comments:

Tha Docta said...

That is most hilarious. We also have "reply to all" people in this company, but it's not nearly as bad as that. At least it seems to get entertaining after a while.

Tha Docta said...

Good to have you back, by the way.

Motor said...

You're not alone in your reply to all pet peeve! C'mon people it's 2005 reply to all was covered at least around 2000!

Deb Ennis said...

Hi Neesha! Welcome to my blog!