Thanks for sharing

I've occasionally ranted about ridiculous emails that people in my office send to the entire company. They've been coming fast and furious lately, sometimes with as many as four or five completely irrelevant emails per day -- often, followed by the dreaded "Reply to All" dialog in which a couple people feel the need to go back and forth seven times (while cc'ing the entire company).

So I thought analyze this phenomenon in a little greater detail today for you entertainment. These emails fall in several major categories:

1. Personal Assistant. Example: "Does anyone have an advil?" usually followed five minutes later by, "Thanks, got one!" Seriously. Can't you just ask someone next to you, or, god forbid, walk downstairs to the 7-11 and get your own damn advil?

Some recent subject: "need a small philips-head screwdriver," "fish bowl for trade show booth," "URGENT - help needed in 5 minutes to bring fridge doors upstairs." Don't ask.

2. Useless information. These are typically emails advising us of something that either you couldn't care less about, or about something that's already happened. Examples include: "Window washing today" (I care??), "Severe weather warning" (umm, yes, I noticed that there was a torrential downpour outside), "fire alarm testing today" (thanks for the head's up, I caught on after the third time we evacuated the building).

3. Thought you'd like to know. This is generally a link and brief "analysis" of some article online that's related to the environment. Usually, it's stupid anyway. But even if it was relevant to our industry at large, do you think I care? If you work for, say, an accounting firm, do you think that everyone in the entire office wants to hear about the latest tax code updates? Wouldn't those who give a crap about that already be reading whatever industry news sources are relevant to their job?

Priceless example:

Subject: Wikipedia. I was scared already.

Body: You are probably all familiar with the Web page Wikipedia. Really? Wikipedia? I think I've been to that "web page" before.

In doing some research yesterday, Ralph and I were pleasantly surprised by the amount of information we could find on a company, including facts and statistics. Shocker! Wikipedia has stuff about... er... stuff!

It is particularly helpful that it is all collected in one place. That's so cool! Have you heard of this "google" thingy? Someone told me it can be very useful in finding stuff on the interwebs.

Verifying the information with other sources takes a lot less time than gathering it all greenfield.Thanks!! And to think, I was getting ready to spend all day in front of the card catalog at the Library of Congress today.

Egads.

4. Mule Requests. "Is anyone going to (insert client) today? I have a package to go there." Ummm... there are probably five people in the entire office who EVER go to our client sites. Figure it out.

5. Bizarro You read it, and then again to make sure, but you just can't be sure that you haven't been slipped some kind of hallucinigenic drug.

In this category, I'll leave you with this one to think about. This is an actual email.

Subject: In the ladies restroom...

Body: Did someone happen to leave a pair of jeans in there? If they are yours I have them at the front desk.

Bench Vise and Blow Torch

Everyone at my office can send email to the whole office just as easily as anyone else. While you might think that this would be used primarily for business purposes, I don't think I can remember the last time it was. Mostly, people forward around things that are usually not as funny or interesting as they think they are, and usually have little to do with our actual business.

For lack of anything interesting to write about from the weekend I thought I would share one that I got today which is a pretty good one. At the risk of the actual author of this email reading my blog, I am going to publicly mock it here.

From:   xxxxxxx xxxxxxx  
Sent:  Monday, March 24, 2008 1:24 PM
To:  Silver Spring
Subject: bench vice and blow torch?

Hi all,

My most recent bicycle acquisition is in dire need of a little surgery.  
Does anyone have a firmly mounted bench vice that I might use?  I'm also
in need of a blow torch for this task.  If you have both, that is most 
optimal.

Thanks,
xxxxxxxxx

A few things come to mind.

1) It took 60 people in the office 30 seconds each to read and delete this email. At least 10 people wrote back and forth several times to laugh at it, and at least one person (yours truly) then took 5 minutes to blog about it. That's almost an hour of man-time. Therefore, you have just wasted approximately $125 in taxpayer dollars that our government clients paid us for that time.

2) There are probably three people in the office with even a remote chance of owning such equipment. Everyone can probably guess who they might be. Ironically, I am one of them.

3) Author of email can't possibly think the best way to find such esoteric items is by emailing everyone in our office, versus, say, asking those key people, or inquiring at Bedrock Billiards, or going to a bike shop or hardware store. Author is an idiot.

4) Alternative, far more likely explanation: Carefully planned subterfuge by male author of email to impress one or more young single female members of the staff. This is better than a resume: Athletic, handy, smart, and not afraid to use a blowtorch. Mmmmm, sexxxxyy....

Hmm... maybe he's onto something...