Monday, February 04, 2008

Corporate Twilight Zone

You gotta love the way technology has enriched corporate America.  But there are those times where technology presents an opportunity for stupidity to raise it's misshapen head and attack.  Case in point:

A technical issue regarding how remote users connect to the corporate network has been found.  The IT vendor, obviously in an effort to alleviate concerns, sends a corporate wide email simply stating that they are aware of the problem and working to resolve the issue.  Unfortunately, once you admit that something is broken in corporate America, there are those that feel it is the perfect time to share their own aggravation with the broken issue.  So, these folks start Replying to All  simply to say 'Yeah, it's happening to us in xxxxxxtown too'.  After 10 to 15 emails essentially saying the same thing and being sent to everyone in the entire country, the next wave of folks jump in to say 'Please stop replying to all'.  The irony, these same people trying to curtail the email traffic have hit Reply to All.  In effect, they did what they were telling others not to do which is setting a horrible example.  Though this could have been effective if only a single person does it, alas that it is not the case.  For the next hour, the 'Don't Reply To All' people are bombarding the company with their message while the 'Yeah it's happening to me people' are slowly fading and decreasing their email throughput.  Halfway through this hour, the 'I have a workaround' people start chiming in and yep they are replying to all...

'Tis a vicious circle guaranteed to last at least until lunch time....

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