OT: E-mail Mishaps

[spiderman]

This morning something happened with my boss, and I was reminded of a story that happened a few years ago when I was still in the Marine Corps. The best I can remember, it happened like this...

A 2ndLt I knew was on a 6 month deployment to the Med. The ship ran aground while traveling through the Suez canal, not only on the way through but also on the way back. They apparently sat docked for weeks while the ship was being repaired. This prompted the 2ndLt to write an e-mail to another buddy of mine about how screwed up the Navy was and he had some particularly colorful and nasty comments to make about the Captain as well. So, the other 2ndLt thinking this was really funny decided to forward it to his father (a retired Marine). His father also finding it funny forwards it to a retired Navy buddy of his under the subject of "Some things never change" or something to that effect.

Now, the next part one can only speculate to, but apparently this e-mail travelled through the channels making its way to the Chief of Naval Operations, where it then began its decent down, eventually landing in the Captain of the ship's inbox. You can imagine this Lieutenants horror when he found himself standing on the carpet in front of the Captain of the ship as the Captain was reading the e-mail he had written to his friend a week earlier.

The moral of the story?

Anyways I just figured other people have had similar mishaps with e-mail and thought it may be funny to share them.

 

[Moebius]

Indeed. Or at least in my case it was a "and they tell two friends" situation.

After our company had been bought, and effectively raped, the new owners decided they had no clue how to run our business and decided to sell us off, this after 2 years of telling us they had no intention of laying anyone off, or selling us. Needless to say, this added to the already 3 years of salary freeze and 5 rounds of layoffs.

Out of boredom one day (a dangerous thing), I built a fake eBay page with Solectron (the parent rapers...err.. company) selling us. If I do say so myself, it was quite well done, had pictures and a good description (with a few jokes in there), and a starting bid of $29.95. So I could show it to a couple of co-workers, I put it up on my dev Web server which only accessible from inside the company.

Needless to say, after the "and they tell two friends" virus spread, I got a call the next morning (I was actually out sick) from my boss and the VP of IT in an absolute panic because I had hacked eBay and put a page about our company being for sale up there. Turns out that it spread in a matter of hours until the CEO of the parent company was shown it. Now, we'll ignore the fact that the URL was http://webdev1/sale.htm, which I'm thinking even the most computer illiterate would not confuse with www.ebay.com. The people actually thought I had hacked eBay (I only wish I was that good)!

So, after taking the pages offline from my laptop (after a quick backup of course ), I got to go in, sick as I was and listen to a fear of God lecture from the two of them.

The moral of the story? Hell, I didn't learn one. About 20 minutes into the lecture, I was frustrated enough that I told them if they wanted it, they could have my resignation effective immediately and good luck finding someone to manage my systems. As I had been asking for backup staff for 2 years and constantly denied it, I was a one man show at the time. They decided I had learned my lesson.

 

[PatsFanDan]

A couple of years ago, a guy that worked in my department received an email from a co-worker. I forget the details of the original email but he was essentially being asked to do something. And the co-worker had copied a number of people including a female manager.

Now the sender and receiver of the emails were apparently friends. So thinking he would be funny, the guy replied back "Hey _____, why don't you blow me". Now the only problem was he clicked on "Reply to All" instead of "Reply" in outlook.

This is one of the dumbest stories I have ever heard when it comes to mistaken emails at work. And somehow this guy kept his job even after HR got involved. I didn't know him very well but he must have been a damn good employee to avoid being fired in that situation.

 

[dchester]

Needless to say, after the "and they tell two friends" virus spread, I got a call the next morning (I was actually out sick) from my boss and the VP of IT in an absolute panic because I had hacked eBay and put a page about our company being for sale up there. Turns out that it spread in a matter of hours until the CEO of the parent company was shown it. Now, we'll ignore the fact that the URL was http://webdev1/sale.htm, which I'm thinking even the most computer illiterate would not confuse with www.ebay.com. The people actually thought I had hacked eBay (I only wish I was that good)!

That was hilarious!!!

ROFL
________
Lincoln MKR

 

[bideau]

This isn't a personal experience, but it's common in my company.

Often, emails will get sent corporate wide regarding an announcement of some sort. For example, a class is now being offered, reply of you're interested. Many times, someone will hit the "reply to all" button and everyone in the corporation receives the response. This will cause some people to reply "Don't reply to all", but they've also hit the "reply to all" button. That will lead to a reply to all with "People, don't reply to all!!!". This will usually go on for a few hours and dozens of replies.

Considering my company has over 15,000 employees, the potential for comedy and annoyance is pretty high.