a little story from work

[astroglide]

i've got a friend named randy that i've known since i was like 12 years old. i got him a job here as a developer. he just sent me an instant message: "aaron has the social iq of a 4-year-old."

aaron is a co-founder of the company, and the lead developer of our project. he sits next to randy in an open area.

only he didn't send the message to me, he sent it to AARON.

so he comes out of a conference room with aaron, sits down, and instant messages me to tell me this. his hands are actually shaking from embarassment, and now both of them are doing the "serious talk" distraction thing with other people. "was that request handler supposed to be instantiated? interesting..."

they might as well talk about how they never noticed that the second hand on their watch was brown or that sort of thing. their thoughts are dominated by what just happened.

i don't know how well this translates in story form, but sitting here right now it is INSANE. this is a real life larry david moment.

I'm so glad I'm still in college and don't have a job yet.

[Benal]

LOL. Hilarious

[mmbt0ne]

daaaaaamn. We had something like this happen when I was working one semester. It didn't go to the main boss, but it was still incredibly awkward for the two people, and hilarious to everyone else.

The one thing NOT to do is try to play it off like a joke. That's what happened at my job, and it just made everything a lot more uncomfortable.

[pokerdirty]

oh man i wish this would happen to one guy at our office. he picks his nose with a pencil eraser. soooooo awkard.

[Los Feliz Slim]

I know someone who had an employee do this, then run into their office and try and delete it from their computer. Of course the email had been sent to the entire company so he was able to read it in short order.

[RunDownHouse]

Two days ago at work a very conservative coworker was talking about his religious beliefs, and going on about how he actually believes people in the Bible lived to be 300+ years old, his belief in creationism, etc. I IM'd another coworker, "I just don't understand his POV sometimes. Completely alien to me."

Except I IM'd it straight to ConservativeCoworker. Who sits directly next to me. He finished up his sentence, checked the IM, and turned to me.

"You know you sent that to me, right?"

"Yes." I blushed furiously in embarrassment, and blurted out, "It wasn't insulting or anything though!"

He only says, "Yeah, I know," and turns back to his computer. I count down the minutes until 6:30. Luckily it really wasn't insulting, so I can't imagine how Randy felt.

[Los Feliz Slim]

Sounds like that could've been much, much, worse.

[NotMitch]

[ QUOTE ]
i've got a friend named randy that i've known since i was like 12 years old. i got him a job here as a developer. he just sent me an instant message: "aaron has the social iq of a 4-year-old."

aaron is a co-founder of the company, and the lead developer of our project. he sits next to randy in an open area.

only he didn't send the message to me, he sent it to AARON.

so he comes out of a conference room with aaron, sits down, and instant messages me to tell me this. his hands are actually shaking from embarassment, and now both of them are doing the "serious talk" distraction thing with other people. "was that request handler supposed to be instantiated? interesting..."

they might as well talk about how they never noticed that the second hand on their watch was brown or that sort of thing. their thoughts are dominated by what just happened.

i don't know how well this translates in story form, but sitting here right now it is INSANE. this is a real life larry david moment.

[/ QUOTE ]


Thats bad, I had someone in my old group do that to a client. I also worked with the girl from this semi famous misdirected email. (http://www.snopes.com/love/dating/newlow.htm) It was very funny when we were getting this as a forward and realized we knew who the girl was.

[imported_anacardo]

[ QUOTE ]
daaaaaamn. We had something like this happen when I was working one semester. It didn't go to the main boss, but it was still incredibly awkward for the two people, and hilarious to everyone else.

The one thing NOT to do is try to play it off like a joke. That's what happened at my job, and it just made everything a lot more uncomfortable.

[/ QUOTE ]

You speak the truth. The only way to get through this situation alive is to bite the bullet, back up what you said and possibly suggest / demand improvement, depending on the situation, all without starting a fight. The real best option is of course to eschew backbiting, but I guess very few of us can be said to have a perfect track record in that regard.

[whiskeytown]

I once offered to get a friend stoned and accidently sent it to his entire group email list - (He was a musician and this was an online mailing list for his music) -

pretty damned funny, actually, as most of the members on the list were church folks - but nothing that would cause me to lose my job -

ah life
RB

[astroglide]

yeah he badmouths you a lot over msn
sorry wrong window

[4_2_it]

The moral of this story kids?

Never commit anything to writing that you wouldn't mind seeing posted on the Internet.

[B Dids]

I had two different girls send things to me that were supposed to be about me.

One was "Why is David being an [censored] today", which I didn't realize was misdirected, just thought it was a good way to make a point that I was being an [censored], which I was.

The other was "How do you tell somebody that they really smell bad today". (I had two identical shirts, one had been worn and was sweaty and nasty- the other was not, I'd grabbed the wrong one) Since I was actually suspecting the same myself, I welcomed the email and changed into a clean shirt.

[RunDownHouse]

[ QUOTE ]
Thats bad, I had someone in my old group do that to a client. I also worked with the girl from this semi famous misdirected email. (http://www.snopes.com/love/dating/newlow.htm) It was very funny when we were getting this as a forward and realized we knew who the girl was.

[/ QUOTE ]
In the "misdirected emails" category, a buddy of mine actually got this one. He goes to Cornell and apparently the emails there are initials followed by a number. He thinks the reason he got this email is because he has the same initials as a recent graduate, and nobody let Doug know she didn't have a Cornell address anymore.

[ QUOTE ]
so this is a really awkward thing for me to write to you, and i almost
refrained from doing so, but i think it would make me feel a lot better to
ask. so i told you about how i'm just starting to get involved with this
girl who is an old friend of mine, her name's andrea. well, i wanted to ask
you, since the other night i remember that i didn't have a condom on for
part of it all, and i know you were on your period, i just wanted to ask you
if you've ever been tested for anything, or even if you know if your
boyfriend has.

i really don't mean this as an insult -- i'm not trying to be a dick here.
i'm mainly just worried since i didn't have a condom on. and like i said i
feel really strange asking... it's just that with me and andrea, we really
haven't done much sexually yet- she lives in brooklyn, and i don't want to
put her at any risk at all. i can tell you that as of last november i got
tested and was totally fine... and since then have had sex with 3 other
girls (2 were girlfriends, one a friend... all of whom were clean as far as
i know) and used condoms.

again i know this is a really [censored] thing for me to ask you, and maybe i'm
overreacting. but like i said i just really dont want to put andrea at any
risk, because i really do care about her a lot.

sorry for killing off the fun of the other night with this, but i'd really
appreciate hearing back from you. thanks danielle

-doug

[/ QUOTE ]

My favorite part is how he drops three bombs in one sentence: unprotected sex, on her period, she has a boyfriend. Wow. My friend was kind enough to let him know he got the wrong person (as opposed to not answering and letting poor Doug sweat).

[The Goober]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm so glad I'm still in college and don't have a job yet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Back in school I had a friend who was doing a lot of work with this one professor. He was talking about the professor in an email and said "somebody needs to slap her" ...and of course he accidently sent it to her. Took a while for him to live that one down, but he kept working with her afterwards.

[nolanfan34]

Good story.

Also a nice reminder that on a similar note the "reply all" button is the most evil creation in e-mail.

[nicky g]

Close shave: In an old job I wrote a (deservedly) very insulting email about the head of the organisation to one of my friends. A split second before I sent it I realised I'd absent-mindedly typed her (the boss's) name into the "to" box rather than my friend's. I had to go out and have a drink after that one. If I had have realised after I sent it, I think I would have just left and not come back; there'd have been no point in hanging around except to get napalmed by the dragon queen before being fired.

[Notorious G.O.B.]

[ QUOTE ]
oh man i wish this would happen to one guy at our office. he picks his nose with a pencil eraser. soooooo awkard.

[/ QUOTE ]
Make it happen.

[ChipWrecked]

Tonight I sent an email hacking on France to a guy in our company I don't know. My coworker with the same name requested it, because I was LOL'ing so hard when I read it.

Looked up the guy in company directory; he's new, and his title is 'director of application security' or some such.

Hope he has a good sense of humor, or isn't French (with apologies to mslif whom I /images/graemlins/heart.gif, but it was funny)

Our email system has no recall feature /images/graemlins/mad.gif

BTW:

"In response to the recent acts of terrorism and vandalism in their country,
the French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror
alert level from "Run" to "Hide". The only two higher levels in France are
"Surrender" and "Collaborate".

The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag
factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability. "

[FouTight]

One time i purchased a domain name a few years ago, that was apparently owned by someone else previously. (The domain was www.plaine.net (http://www.plaine.net), I no longer own it). Whoever owned this domain before had some pretty interesting stuff going on, because I setup a catch all email and I got some pretty weird crap.

But one day I got a picture of 2 guys skiing naked with the subject something like "The ultimate winter vacation".

Now normally, I just would post the emails I recieved on the site, because they were pretty funny, but this one I was not a fan of. I can tolerate a lot of stuff, but naked men directly to my inbox? no, thanks.

Furthermore this lady sent it from her work address, at a law office...

I went to their website and found their founders email, I forwarded him this gem, she wasn't doing her work anyways, right?

[NLSoldier]

wow I didnt know your name is Dave

[pudley4]

Help desk support. We had a special line for a certain group of employees, it had its own phone. The guy who took those calls had a headset connected to both the special phone and his regular one. He's on this line helping an employee with her email, and it's taking a long time. He gets a call on his regular phone and puts her on hold. He answers the phone and it's his wife. She starts to ask him a question but he interrupts her with "I don't have time right now, I've got this idiot I'm trying to help with email". He then hears a voice from the first call "I'm still here"

/images/graemlins/blush.gif

[Shajen]

this is the same company where youlive like 20 minutes from and only work 4 days a week at right?

ISSCKM.

[nicky g]

[ QUOTE ]
One time i purchased a domain name a few years ago, that was apparently owned by someone else previously. (The domain was www.plaine.net (http://www.plaine.net), I no longer own it). Whoever owned this domain before had some pretty interesting stuff going on, because I setup a catch all email and I got some pretty weird crap.

But one day I got a picture of 2 guys skiing naked with the subject something like "The ultimate winter vacation".

Now normally, I just would post the emails I recieved on the site, because they were pretty funny, but this one I was not a fan of. I can tolerate a lot of stuff, but naked men directly to my inbox? no, thanks.

Furthermore this lady sent it from her work address, at a law office...

I went to their website and found their founders email, I forwarded him this gem, she wasn't doing her work anyways, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, you sound horrible.

[FouTight]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
One time i purchased a domain name a few years ago, that was apparently owned by someone else previously. (The domain was www.plaine.net (http://www.plaine.net), I no longer own it). Whoever owned this domain before had some pretty interesting stuff going on, because I setup a catch all email and I got some pretty weird crap.

But one day I got a picture of 2 guys skiing naked with the subject something like "The ultimate winter vacation".

Now normally, I just would post the emails I recieved on the site, because they were pretty funny, but this one I was not a fan of. I can tolerate a lot of stuff, but naked men directly to my inbox? no, thanks.

Furthermore this lady sent it from her work address, at a law office...

I went to their website and found their founders email, I forwarded him this gem, she wasn't doing her work anyways, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, you sound horrible.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can't, in good faith, disagree with this statement. I HAVE settled down a bit in the last couple years, this was a while ago, but nonetheless.