• (cs) in reply to Lego
    Lego:
    Male Boxx:
    kingsnake:
    No specific quote, but someone will send an all hands email -- a WTF in itself that a company would allow peons to do this -- and the recipients, apparently unaware of the existence of the "Reply" key, instead "Reply all". Thus my inbox is treated to unfiltered internal spam.
    We had a 5 hour "war" in which everyone on the reply all list kept replying-all to say "Please stop replying all, you're killing my inbox!". Including one guy who begged for the madness to stop ABOUT EIGHT TIMES.

    Please remove me from this mailing list.

    Thanks! :-)

    Bloody hell, that was far too accurate a reply.

    Everytime some muppets start a company-wide email thread you have people saying crap like that.

    Last company was a multi-national made up of ooh...about 10,000 people and this happened far too often.

  • sota (unregistered)

    Back in 2000, after 22 months of development, the startup I was a part of released our first video game (moderately good, moderate success) and the first bit of memorable "fan email" we received was succinct and to the point (quoted precisely, because it's been easy to remember all these years):

    nice game assface
  • (cs) in reply to Abdiel
    Neither of the three mails had any attachments.
    Interesting use of the word "neither".
  • (cs) in reply to wtf
    Why not just have the students keep their work under source control on the school's computers? Then there's no question of "turning in" the work - you grade what's in the repository on the due date. As a side benefit, you can follow their progress, and know where they're having difficulty as they're doing it, which allows you to tailor your lectures to their actualy progress, or to grant extensions if they're actually trying and not getting it. As a side benefit for the student, they learn how to use source control....
    The source control idea is great. But, wow, that's really expecting a lot from the teacher. Has anyone ever actually had a teacher who would go to all that trouble to tune his lectures to the student's needs?
  • Oslo (unregistered) in reply to wtf
    wtf:
    (sending a programming assignment in by email? There's a bonus wtf for today...)

    When I handed in my master thesis a few years ago, it included 70+ pages of printed sourcecode.

    And I wasn't just having a bubble, I was actually instructed to do it.

  • Nick (unregistered) in reply to DCRoss
    DCRoss:
    Interestingly enough, GMail will stop you from doing this. If the body of an email includes phrases like "I have attached stuff" it will warn you if you try to send it without attaching anything.
    Ahhhh, that's why Thunderbird does something like this. I couldn't figure out why it popped up a bar at the bottom of the window asking for the attachment whenever I typed the word "attach". I thought it was just a helper for stupid people who have no idea how to attach something to an email.
  • The Kids (unregistered) in reply to Tim Rowe
    Tim Rowe:
    "Not look great" == "Chunks of it not even on my screen". And yes, I view in granddad mode -- I am a granddad, after all!

    A bit of disability awareness on the site would be appreciated.

    We'll work on that right after we get off your lawn.

  • Some Other Guy, no not *him*, that one over there... (unregistered) in reply to Some Guy
    What's the point to having a secretary if every person gets to decide "well, those other suckers can go through the filter, but this is important, dammit, and I need to go straight to the boss"?

    Unfortunately, you've pretty much just described my work day. It seems that the SOP is to open a trouble ticket then send an email to my supervisor, his manager, and the SVP of the department. Screw the process, I CAN'T GET ON THE INTERNET, DAMMIT!!!11!!eleventy

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous
    A recent e-mail:
    From: marketing@[redacted] To: all@[redacted] Re: New Assistant

    To all staff,

    We are pleased to announce that the marketing department has found a new ass

    Useful to ride on to go out marketing our product then.
  • MrOli (unregistered)

    Hi Joan,

    Have you tried turning the solution off and on again?

    Please leave it off for at least five minutes to allow the solution time to condense.

    Thanks, -Oli

  • (cs) in reply to MrOli
    MrOli:
    Hi Joan,

    Have you tried turning the solution off and on again?

    Please leave it off for at least five hours to allow time for my shift on the support desk to end.

    Thanks, -Oli

    FTFY

  • Bus Logic (unregistered) in reply to blakeyrat
    blakeyrat:
    Bus Logic:
    Anonimoose:
    Bill Smith's request seems legit. He basically just wants the same thing for his email that he has for his phone - a receptionist. Someone to sort through the junk for him and only bring the important stuff to his attention.

    That's the perk of being president of a company and a necessity if the company is large enough.

    I was a bit surprised by the acerbic response to that e-mail as well. It's not that much of an ask to get people to CC some other person when they send e-mails to the boss and his message didn't seem particularly snarky or anything. Mind you, I loved the last "Oops, forgot the CC carrie" bit.

    I'm sorry, if you say "of an ask", you're already lost. Please get off this site and go find MBA WTF, or whatever site people who say "ask" instead of "question" use for WTF posting.

    Hmm, blakeyrat being an ass, that's unusual. Oh, wait, no it's not. Is it really that big of an ask for you not to be an insufferable prick all the time?

  • (cs) in reply to Mac
    The Nerve:
    I've got a REAL email WTF that has very little to do with email.

    My phone rings Hey, I just sent you an email. As he finishes his sentence, I see it pop into my inbox. Ok, thanks. Yeah, basically what it says is... -- he describes contents of email. I follow along as he reviews the entire contents of the email. He hangs up, and I compose my reply. I click "Send", and moments later, I have a visitor. Hey, I just got your email. Ok... I'm going to go read it now. He leaves. I'll let you guess what happened when he was done reading the email.

    Dude. If you're that insecure, send a read-receipt.

    I have never accepted the sending of a read receipt, no matter who it is from. It's the same as someone sending you a letter and expecting you to write back immediately to them stating when you opened the envelope (which is, after all, before you've even read the letter).

    Oh, and since "ask" is a verb not a noun or even adverb, there cannot be such a thing as "an ask". I know language evolves but that shit is not to be countenanced under any circumstances. Especially when a perfectly cromulent word already exists: "request"

  • CoderDan (unregistered) in reply to Luiz
    Luiz:
    The TrueWTF is SVN.

    Oh let me guess, CVS?

  • CoderDan (unregistered) in reply to MrBester
    MrBester:
    The Nerve:
    I've got a REAL email WTF that has very little to do with email.

    My phone rings Hey, I just sent you an email. As he finishes his sentence, I see it pop into my inbox. Ok, thanks. Yeah, basically what it says is... -- he describes contents of email. I follow along as he reviews the entire contents of the email. He hangs up, and I compose my reply. I click "Send", and moments later, I have a visitor. Hey, I just got your email. Ok... I'm going to go read it now. He leaves. I'll let you guess what happened when he was done reading the email.

    Dude. If you're that insecure, send a read-receipt.

    I have never accepted the sending of a read receipt, no matter who it is from. It's the same as someone sending you a letter and expecting you to write back immediately to them stating when you opened the envelope (which is, after all, before you've even read the letter).

    Oh, and since "ask" is a verb not a noun or even adverb, there cannot be such a thing as "an ask". I know language evolves but that shit is not to be countenanced under any circumstances. Especially when a perfectly cromulent word already exists: "request"

    I personally would have stated 'request' as opposed to 'ask'. Nonetheless, according to Washington State Univ:

    If you want something you can request it or you can ask for it. Many people like “request” because it sounds more formal, more elegant; but to other people it just sounds pretentious. There are many instances in which plain old “ask” works better: “I'm asking my buddies to go camping with me.” “She asked him to walk the dog.” Except on wedding invitations, try to avoid “request” where “ask” will do as well.

  • Ozz (unregistered) in reply to The Nerve
    The Nerve:
    As if the guy a couple of cubes over with a hearing problem and a love for the speakerphone was not irritating enough.
    I used to work with a guy who used to check his voicemail on speakerphone. Drove us crazy. Soon fixed him though. I had my girlfriend of the time call and leave him a message. He's playing he voicemail the next day and suddenly we all heard the following: "Hi. This is Candi from 1-900-HOT-BABE. You haven't paid for those toys you ordered, you naughty little boy..."

    Beautiful...

  • Paul (unregistered) in reply to Anonimoose
    Anonimoose:
    Bill Smith's request seems legit. He basically just wants the same thing for his email that he has for his phone - a receptionist. Someone to sort through the junk for him and only bring the important stuff to his attention.

    That's the perk of being president of a company and a necessity if the company is large enough.

    Surely the solution to that is to set up the mail system to send all the stuff to his receptionist. (I could do a shameless plug of our own mail server software which has this as a standard feature, but won't)

    Even if you're using a crappy mail server like Exchange, you could surely just set up 'Bill.Smith' as being an alias for 'Carrie' and have a secret email address for Bill which only Carrie (and probably Bill's wife) knows about. Not rocket science.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Ken
    Ken:
    Jules:
    Ken:
    Were you drunk when you typed this, or is there a cat walking on your keyboard?

    I like this one because that's something I'd actually do.

    What, get drunk at work, or get a cat to walk on your keyboard?

  • Yardik (unregistered) in reply to Ozz
    Ozz:
    The Nerve:
    As if the guy a couple of cubes over with a hearing problem and a love for the speakerphone was not irritating enough.
    I used to work with a guy who used to check his voicemail on speakerphone. Drove us crazy. Soon fixed him though. I had my girlfriend of the time call and leave him a message. He's playing he voicemail the next day and suddenly we all heard the following: "Hi. This is Candi from 1-900-HOT-BABE. You haven't paid for those toys you ordered, you naughty little boy..."

    Beautiful...

    Ozz FTW.

  • wtf (unregistered) in reply to CoderDan
    CoderDan:
    MrBester:
    The Nerve:
    I've got a REAL email WTF that has very little to do with email.

    My phone rings Hey, I just sent you an email. As he finishes his sentence, I see it pop into my inbox. Ok, thanks. Yeah, basically what it says is... -- he describes contents of email. I follow along as he reviews the entire contents of the email. He hangs up, and I compose my reply. I click "Send", and moments later, I have a visitor. Hey, I just got your email. Ok... I'm going to go read it now. He leaves. I'll let you guess what happened when he was done reading the email.

    Dude. If you're that insecure, send a read-receipt.

    I have never accepted the sending of a read receipt, no matter who it is from. It's the same as someone sending you a letter and expecting you to write back immediately to them stating when you opened the envelope (which is, after all, before you've even read the letter).

    Oh, and since "ask" is a verb not a noun or even adverb, there cannot be such a thing as "an ask". I know language evolves but that shit is not to be countenanced under any circumstances. Especially when a perfectly cromulent word already exists: "request"

    I personally would have stated 'request' as opposed to 'ask'. Nonetheless, according to Washington State Univ:

    If you want something you can request it or you can ask for it. Many people like “request” because it sounds more formal, more elegant; but to other people it just sounds pretentious. There are many instances in which plain old “ask” works better: “I'm asking my buddies to go camping with me.” “She asked him to walk the dog.” Except on wedding invitations, try to avoid “request” where “ask” will do as well.

    You guys need help. Desperately. The phrase you're looking for is "Is that too much to ask?"

    Okay, can you please fight about something less boring now? I'm not paying good nothing to read inept language flames.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Abdiel
    Abdiel:
    Talking about send button trigger-happy people, I received this from one of my students a while ago (retyping the mails from memory, I don't really want to go through my mailbox to find them again):

    From: <student> To: <Me> Subject: Assignment

    Hello, I am sending the source code for the C++ programming assignment for tomorrow.

    From: <student> To: <Me> Subject: Re: Assignment

    Sorry, I forgot to attach the file to the first e-mail.

    From: <student> To: <Me> Subject: Re: Re: Assignment

    Now I am really sending the file. Sorry once again.

    Neither of the three mails had any attachments.

    My friend used to do that to buy himself some time over deadlines and it... worked.

  • user unknown (unregistered)

    The Cables that Store the Internet? It's in the mice, stupid!

  • (cs) in reply to CoderDan
    CoderDan:
    MrBester:
    The Nerve:
    I've got a REAL email WTF that has very little to do with email.

    My phone rings Hey, I just sent you an email. As he finishes his sentence, I see it pop into my inbox. Ok, thanks. Yeah, basically what it says is... -- he describes contents of email. I follow along as he reviews the entire contents of the email. He hangs up, and I compose my reply. I click "Send", and moments later, I have a visitor. Hey, I just got your email. Ok... I'm going to go read it now. He leaves. I'll let you guess what happened when he was done reading the email.

    Dude. If you're that insecure, send a read-receipt.

    I have never accepted the sending of a read receipt, no matter who it is from. It's the same as someone sending you a letter and expecting you to write back immediately to them stating when you opened the envelope (which is, after all, before you've even read the letter).

    Oh, and since "ask" is a verb not a noun or even adverb, there cannot be such a thing as "an ask". I know language evolves but that shit is not to be countenanced under any circumstances. Especially when a perfectly cromulent word already exists: "request"

    I personally would have stated 'request' as opposed to 'ask'. Nonetheless, according to Washington State Univ:

    If you want something you can request it or you can ask for it. Many people like “request” because it sounds more formal, more elegant; but to other people it just sounds pretentious. There are many instances in which plain old “ask” works better: “I'm asking my buddies to go camping with me.” “She asked him to walk the dog.” Except on wedding invitations, try to avoid “request” where “ask” will do as well.

    Except that ask doesn't work in the original context. They are saying 'An ask'. It sounds retarded to say "Is it too much of an ask to pick up the garbage?" Instead, you would say "Is it too big of a request to pick up the garbage?". If you really wanted to say ask, you could say "Is it too much to ask to pick up the garbage?"

    Saying "of an ask" should never be correct. Either use the word "ask" correctly, or use the word "request".

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to renalexam
    MrBester:
    Oh, and since "ask" is a verb not a noun or even adverb, there cannot be such a thing as "an ask". I know language evolves but that shit is not to be countenanced under any circumstances. Especially when a perfectly cromulent word already exists: "request"

    Yes, one of the grammar rules I learned in high school was, "Don't verbize your nouns."

    I think it came right between "Never use a preposition to end a sentence with" and "About sentence fragments."

  • dave (unregistered) in reply to CoderDan
    CoderDan:
    I personally would have stated 'request' as opposed to 'ask'. Nonetheless, according to Washington State Univ:

    If you want something you can request it or you can ask for it. Many people like “request” because it sounds more formal, more elegant; but to other people it just sounds pretentious. There are many instances in which plain old “ask” works better: “I'm asking my buddies to go camping with me.” “She asked him to walk the dog.” Except on wedding invitations, try to avoid “request” where “ask” will do as well.

    That applies to "request" used as a verb, in which case it's (nearly) synonymous with "ask". But "request" can also be a noun, and "ask" is never a noun. In the example under discussion, a noun is required.

  • Anone (unregistered) in reply to fnord
    fnord:
    While "question" may not be the right word to use, the phrase "too much of an ask to get people" is just so much marketing-speak, where they can't be bothered to use the proper words to form sentences.

    It's a common idiom in my part of the world.

  • nerfer (unregistered)
    > > From: Bill Smith > > Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 5:38 PM > > To: All Users > > Subject: Email communication > > > > I have made this request before but it bares repeating since it is still not happening. Carrie Jones > > should at least be copied on all emails to me. In fact, I prefer you send them to her unless they are private. > > She will get them to me. If you send to me without ccing her, it is 50/50 if I see it or not. > > > > Thank You, > > > > Bill W. Smith, President > > Registered Financial Consultant > > Random Financial Services Company > > > > Smith Service Team > > > > Joe xxx 321-456-1724 > > Kelly xxx 321-456-1726 > > Carrie Jones 321-456-4882 > > Brandy xxx 321-456-4884 > > Jill xxx 321-456-4883 > > Steve xxx 321-456-1736
    So why were the last names x'd out (except for Carrie Jones) but the phone numbers left in? 321 is a legitimate area code (Florida), I assume 456 is legitimate as well.

    And for the person quoting Washington State University over "ask" vs. "request" - the examples quoted still use 'ask' as a verb, not as a noun. Perhaps you need to dialogue with a subject-matter expert about the appropriate methodology to apply for this use case.

    Lastly, the text runs slightly off the page on my view too, and I'm just using standard Firefox on XP, no grandpa mode for the text in my case.

  • Eternal Density - don't have my password saved on this computer (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Short and sweet:
    A recent e-mail:
    From: marketing@[redacted] To: all@[redacted] Re: New Assistant

    To all staff,

    We are pleased to announce that the marketing department has found a new ass

    That was the whole message. Someone got a bit trigger-happy with the "send" button, just unfortunate that it happened to be on a message to the company-wide distribution list.

    Is this the one they found? http://thechive.com/2010/08/10/girl-quits-her-job-on-dry-erase-board-emails-entire-office-33-photos/

    CAPTCHA: tristique: a threesome with Mystique?

  • Radu C (unregistered)

    While reading the "I forgot to CC Carrie" message, this question popped into my head: "Can I have Carrie's phone number?". Thanks for not blanking it out in the Boss's signature. You're a star!

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