Earlier this year, one of our investor relations people accidentally cc'd an entire slew of Wall St. stock analysts covering us our updated financial projections which were to be released on the next earnings call which wasn't schedule until several weeks later. Company had to scramble and have a call with analysts the next day. New was not particularly good, sending the stock way down.

sellthefarm said:

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GunRangeGal said:

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That sucks, but it happens. I write emails under the assumption that anybody can read them.

At least you're not like the girl in my office who sent her dental school application out to the entire office. I'm really not sure how somebody can make THAT big of a mistake.

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This....

I can't tell you how many times I've sent an email to ONE person and they end up forwarding it to TWENTY people.

Everything you type is discoverable.

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Had something similar yesterday when I sent an email to another office discussing a specific supplier and their willingness to help us. I was pretty candid in the email about what I've gathered through talking with them that they really don't want to do and how we can use that to our advantage, and this person decided to ask the supplier a question by forwarding my email to them. Lets just take away all leverage we have by turning our cards face up.

ThatOneAg said:

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I removed mine from my Quick Access Toolbar.

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smart. please post here more to offset the dumbassery.

Once I strongly criticized a policy our VP had put in place to another colleague who is based in Rotterdam. Our VP, based in Switzerland (which what made me feel safe to do this) happened to be visiting the Rotterdam site and was in the colleague's office at the time...and I was on speakerphone

SeattleAgJr said:

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Doh.

I said some true things but not in a tactful way. Needless to say since some of the parties are external an email recall would not work.

At least it was about an individual with the external accounting firm that is providing us with "support" and not about anyone internal.

The mildly apologetic email just went out.

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In the 1990s at A&M, one incoming freshman sent an e-mail to pretty much every A&M e-mail account. What he did was just do a listing of the user directories on fox, scully, and mulder (I think those were the computer names) and sent the e-mail to every one of them. For example, if your username was abc1234 (three initials and last four digits of your social security number), he sent it to abc1234@tamu.edu.

I have had managers freaking do that; send out whole internal email threads to customers and/or vendors; even without sensitive info; that don't need that crap.


I have to send out company wide emails from time to time; it only took me one time to learn to make sure I use Bcc: *everyonecompany with every email moving forward to avoid the reply all's.

eric76 said:

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SeattleAgJr said:

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Doh.

I said some true things but not in a tactful way. Needless to say since some of the parties are external an email recall would not work.

At least it was about an individual with the external accounting firm that is providing us with "support" and not about anyone internal.

The mildly apologetic email just went out.

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In the 1990s at A&M, one incoming freshman sent an e-mail to pretty much every A&M e-mail account. What he did was just do a listing of the user directories on fox, scully, and mulder (I think those were the computer names) and sent the e-mail to every one of them. For example, if your username was abc1234 (three initials and last four digits of your social security number), he sent it to abc1234@tamu.edu.

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sounds like that's back in the @acs.tamu.edu and @unix.tamu.edu days.

ChiliBeans said:

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The company-wide reply-all disaster isn't complete until you rack up a couple dozen reply-alls asking to be removed from the reply-all list.

Have fun tomorrow.

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Last year a guy in my company mistakenly used the "all users" distribution. We are a global company with thousands of employees, and apparently had no restiction on who could use "all users". The guy told me he had over 2,000 replies of "remove me", out of office messages, etc. Then he paused, and said what's going to happen when the offices in China wake up in a few hours? Fortunately IT was able to work their magic before he found out.

I typed up an email to copy and paste into a response to anyone who replied all to me in my previous region. It essentially outlined email etiquette and how they should handle business. The reply all emails stopped pretty quickly as no one wanted to be called out (I used reply all).

Someone told me that a guy at Shell replied all to a company wide email which quickly became a cluster.

The last company I worked for was a major midstream company with thousands of employees across North America and some international offices.

One employee who was upset and about to quit used the 'all users' feature to write a disgruntled employee email putting his supervisor on blast. He talked about how lazy, fat, and out of shape he was and how terrible he was at managing his employees. He even touched on personal issues that he thought were affecting his work. He also went on to blame his supervisor's supervisors (by name) for poor performance and call out a handful of others for favoritism and some claims that I'm sure had HR shlttin bricks.

Granted his was on purpose but this email went to everyone from CEO to random office admins. Surprised me that he even had access to the 'all users' button.

Kitten With A Whip said:

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At least you weren't sending deek pics to your office honey!

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I make sure and reply all when I do this.
It ensures that everyone at work approaches me with a sense of awe and respect.

And by awe and respect, I obviously mean pity.

My first job out of college, our assistant controller was a real beetch. The controller was still heavily involved in the management of office staff, because he knew that she wasn't personable but was trying to mold her. Well, she was *****ing out one of the other staff accountants, and I pulled up a chat screen to send him a message at the end of the scolding. My mind was thinking of her went I pulled up the chat, so I wrote a quick message commenting on her going off with her as the recipient. As soon as I clicked send, I saw it and audibly said, "well ****". Most embarrassing moment of my career... I didn't get fired or officially written up for it. She never *****ed me out after that either.

CJS4715 said:

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I didn't get fired or officially written up for it. She never *****ed me out after that either.

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eric76 said:

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SeattleAgJr said:

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Doh.

I said some true things but not in a tactful way. Needless to say since some of the parties are external an email recall would not work.

At least it was about an individual with the external accounting firm that is providing us with "support" and not about anyone internal.

The mildly apologetic email just went out.

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In the 1990s at A&M, one incoming freshman sent an e-mail to pretty much every A&M e-mail account. What he did was just do a listing of the user directories on fox, scully, and mulder (I think those were the computer names) and sent the e-mail to every one of them. For example, if your username was abc1234 (three initials and last four digits of your social security number), he sent it to abc1234@tamu.edu.

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Back then we had our own (unofficial) server we used for email over in the Teague building. @shamu.tamu.edu

CJS4715 said:

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My first job out of college, our assistant controller was a real beetch. The controller was still heavily involved in the management of office staff, because he knew that she wasn't personable but was trying to mold her. Well, she was *****ing out one of the other staff accountants, and I pulled up a chat screen to send him a message at the end of the scolding. My mind was thinking of her went I pulled up the chat, so I wrote a quick message commenting on her going off with her as the recipient. As soon as I clicked send, I saw it and audibly said, "well ****". Most embarrassing moment of my career... I didn't get fired or officially written up for it. She never *****ed me out after that either.

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Probably for one of 2 reasons:

1. It finally dawned on her that her actions are being seen and reported
2. It showed her that you're not afraid to call her on her BS to those who can make her life a living hell

Not sure how either of those things are true.

I've never hit reply all, but I have on occasion worried that I didnt push hold or mute on a call when *****ing about the person on the other end of the line.

histag10 said:

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I've never hit reply all, but I have on occasion worried that I didnt push hold or mute on a call when *****ing about the person on the other end of the line.

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I do this all of the time, but it's usually after I rip a fart.

Apparently it is very difficult to be a grown-up and not talk crap about colleagues behind their backs until you make it to the bar.

What type of jobs do some of you have that you never ever reply to all? If I get an e-mail asking me a question and the sender chooses to copy other people because he feels that they need to know the answer as well, then I'll reply to all. Obviously, the sender wants other people to be involved in the conversation.

Our outlook contacts actually has fake distribution groups as the first contact so people can't accidentally click on it and send to all users.

I will always know what our controller wants for dinner at any company function though.

Many years ago, I worked in Development for a major retailer that was opening a a new store in the Plaza Frontenac shopping center in St. Louis. As construction of the store was completed, one of the administrative assistants sent out a company wide email with all the customary store opening details. It was late in the day, so she hit "spell check" and then "send" and than quickly packed up and went home. The next morning, she discovered that spell check had changed "Plaza Frontenac" to "Please Fornicate", and that was what went out to everyone in the company. She kept her job, but she never lived it down.

ThatOneAg said:

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eric76 said:

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SeattleAgJr said:

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Doh.

I said some true things but not in a tactful way. Needless to say since some of the parties are external an email recall would not work.

At least it was about an individual with the external accounting firm that is providing us with "support" and not about anyone internal.

The mildly apologetic email just went out.

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In the 1990s at A&M, one incoming freshman sent an e-mail to pretty much every A&M e-mail account. What he did was just do a listing of the user directories on fox, scully, and mulder (I think those were the computer names) and sent the e-mail to every one of them. For example, if your username was abc1234 (three initials and last four digits of your social security number), he sent it to abc1234@tamu.edu.

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Back then we had our own (unofficial) server we used for email over in the Teague building. @shamu.tamu.edu

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I remember that, as well as the fox scully and mulder.

Also that our email were our initials and last 4 of our SSN.

aTm2004 said:

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histag10 said:

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I've never hit reply all, but I have on occasion worried that I didnt push hold or mute on a call when *****ing about the person on the other end of the line.

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I do this all of the time, but it's usually after I rip a fart.

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I was on a conference call while driving, when all of a sudden someone swung into my lane almost hitting me.

I scream a very loud "ffffffuuuuuuuccccccckkkkkk" while unmuted.

Was horrified for a fraction of a second, but apologized, explained what happened and finished that call like a BOSS!

RealTalk said:

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What type of jobs do some of you have that you never ever reply to all? If I get an e-mail asking me a question and the sender chooses to copy other people because he feels that they need to know the answer as well, then I'll reply to all. Obviously, the sender wants other people to be involved in the conversation.

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We're not talking about work groups, we're talking about global address books. Like when some IT queef needs to shut down a database for a 2 hours of monthly maintenance on a Saturday and instead of sending it to the department that uses said database, he sends it to thousands of people in the global address book. For the next 2-3 days, every redneck in the address book sends angry "please remove me" emails using reply all. So your inbox is littered with this crap for a couple days. Repeat every month.

I forgot that one time a software developer e-mailed me directly to get more clarification on a requirement and to see if I agreed with the logic being used. Within that e-mail, the developer complained about the project PM (who I didn't personally like but thought was a damn effective PM). I essentially wrote that I agree that the person can be abrasive, but that the project had improved immensely since this PM took over.

Well, the damn developer forwards the entire e-mail string to the PM, because my first paragraph was approving clarification on the requirement. WTF... and all the lady focused on was the part where I called her a bit abrasive, but she completely ignored the part where I said she was doing excellent work.

sellthefarm said:

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Everything you type is discoverable.

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This. This times 1,000. If everybody operated with this in mind, that would fix the majority of accidental email problems.

Anytime I have to send out an email to a large group of people I always put "Please DO NOT 'REPLY ALL' to this message"...and without fail some idiot will do it anyways

Beer Baron said:

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aTm2004 said:

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Please take me off of this email.

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By far my most used sentence.

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I've started screenshotting (and sending said screenshot back to the sender) my mouse hovering the "No" option on the "So and so requested a read reciept be sent. Do you want to send a receipt?" message. Make sure the "Don't ask me about sending reciepts again" is checked for maximun effect.

Quote:

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Had something similar yesterday when I sent an email to another office discussing a specific supplier and their willingness to help us. I was pretty candid in the email about what I've gathered through talking with them that they really don't want to do and how we can use that to our advantage, and this person decided to ask the supplier a question by forwarding my email to them. Lets just take away all leverage we have by turning our cards face up.

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This happens all the time. My favorite is when people start adding suppliers to email chains midstream and half the recipients don't realize it...(even when you add SUPPLIER ON EMAIL to the header)

lol I remember one time I sent an email.

Thunder18 said:

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Anytime I have to send out an email to a large group of people I always put "Please DO NOT 'REPLY ALL' to this message"...and without fail some idiot will do it anyways

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If you put that in the email I'd probably do it too.

The biggest email blunder I've made is I once sent an email to a client that should have gone to a coworker with the same first name. Thankfully it wasn't about anything serious and both the client and coworker are pretty laid back.

We had a guy at work send a confidential email to the entire company instead of one person. The person he was sending the email to was not authorized to receive it. The IT guy spent the afternoon deleting it from everyone's inbox since many people had read it right away and auto recall would not work.

It's not people being petty, it's that people are just idiots