My e-mail address is [first_initial][lastname]@domain.com. Thankfully, we’re a small company, so we also let people have [firstname]@domain.com and/or [nickname]@domain.com as aliases. This is useful in many instances, like when someone’s last name is kinda difficult to spell, or when you run out of business cards and it’s easier for a new business contact to remember [firstname]@domain.com.
The various aliases are just that - pointers to my main mailbox. They are not separate e-mail addresses. Your e-mail will not get to me any faster if you send it to [firstinitial][lastname]@domain.com and copy all the other aliases. There aren’t a bunch of little separate e-mail boxes that reach me at different places I might be. When you copy every alias, I get multiple copies of your e-mails. And I’ve told you this. Somehow, you keep right on believing that copying every alias you’ve ever had for me will make me get your e-mail faster. Aaaaargh!
Similarly, our main phone number has a 212 main number, but everyone here has direct-dial numbers in the 646 area code. It happens. We got a very nice VOIP system and this is just how it worked out.
Guess what? I don’t get your voice mail any faster when you call my direct dial and leave a message, and then dial up the main number, navigate through the directory tree and leave another message on my voice mail. It’s not like I have multiple answering machines sitting here on my desk. It all goes to the same place.
Enough with dialing up my mobile phone in non-emergency situations. “You didn’t pick up at your desk” does NOT constitute a fucking emergency. My wonderful little IP phone TELLS YOU that I am on the other line and to leave a message. Guess what? It’s not lying. And when I put my landline call on hold so I can see what the fucking emergency is, and you tell me that you “just wanted to try to get a hold of me directly” so you can chat about “what’s up,” you really can’t blame me for getting pissed off.
Find a new way to place emphasis on your e-mail, Ms. External Vendor. Looking at my e-mail history for you, I have fifty-fucking-six e-mails from you over the past several months. Every single one of them is marked URGENT and is pre-flagged for follow-up. First off, get over yourself. Not everything you do is urgent, particularly since you sell to me and I buy from you. Secondly, where the flying fuck do you get the idea that you can arbitrarily add tasks with due dates to my Outlook? The last guy that tried something even remotely close to this (sending me calendared meetings from outside the company without calling or e-mailing me first) had his ass handed to him in the form of a gratuitous verbal ass-beating. The idea that you have some sort of privilege that no one else has to set priorities for me is unbelievably presumptuous and rude.
I agree. I’m sure there’s some other company out there that makes Widget X. And I bet they conduct business like people, and not chipmunks on amphetamines.
To be scrupulously fair to the rude cunt of a vendor, perhaps she had her Outlook initially set up by someone else who thinks those settings a good idea and genuinely has no idea what her emails do by default. If, on the other hand, you have OTHER email from her that isn’t similarly flagged, and/or you have already told her to knock it off–well then, fuck her in the ass with a fourteen inch dildo wrapped in barbed wire and dragged backward through a thoroughly beshat cat box.
My particular communication peeve is with the fucking telemarketers on the landline. I want them all dead, dead, dead. Especially the fucking assholes who demand to know whether we take Visa or MasterCard and will not answer any other question until you give them a yes or no. I REALLY hate them, and they can die of ebola of the ass. Twice each.
The head salesguy asks me where something is on the server. I tell him, exactly, in multiple ways (the exact file name and how far down it is). He says he can’t find it, can I look on his computer? I get up knowing it’s going to be because he’s an idiot.
He’s trying to find a PDF file in Act which is set to only see .adt (or whatever it is) files. I explain to him, that won’t work. He keeps looking. Let me repeat that: I told him that it wouldn’t see PDFs because it only shows Act files, and he kept looking anyway.
He insists he’s opened his files that way. Uh-huh. You’re not even looking where you told me to put your files. I’ve never done anything with Act. I don’t know how to use Act. I don’t even have Act on my computer.
The other senior salesguy, who is a GIANT idiot, tells him he’s an idiot.
The salesguys never listen to me, they don’t read my emails, and I’m used to it. But it still sucks.
Heh. There’s a client we have who will email you, and if you don’t answer it within a few minutes, she’ll email you again. If you don’t respond to that, she’ll call. If you don’t pick up, she’ll call someone who sits next to you. Or get you on Skype. She works in a building just down the street, and we fully expect her to show up in person one day, asking, “Did you get that email I sent 17 minutes ago? Why haven’t you answerrrrrrrred???”
Oh my, now there’s Diet Dr. Pepper in my nose, thanks.
I have a guy here, a former VP at a big telecommunications company that does this. EVERY fucking e-mail he sends, he skips over to my office to tell me he’s sent it, and he has this look on his face like it’s the newest craze, this wacky e-mailing!!!
Our answering system asks people to enter the first name of the person they are calling.
But often they are returning a call to Ms. Lastname and don’t know the first name.
Or else they can’t spell Louis to save their lives.
I lost more prospects that way until my mother tried to leave an urgent message and coun’t get through.
If you CC me on an urban legend at work, please expect a thorough debunking replied and CC:ed to all the other people who had the misfortune of receiving said same email.
And if you don’t like me doing so, then don’t CC your boss the latest “Oh, let’s show the oil companies we mean business and not buy gas next Tuesday!” crapola.
At times, it’s a true (malicious) pleasure in being the boss.
I must also lovingly Pit my father. My father, who has recently retired, has joined the ranks of Forwarders Of E-mails That Warn Of Dire Circumstances. Thanks, Dad, for upping the spam in my inbox. The worst example, and the point at which I finally called him up and sort of yelled at him – which I never do – is this, which I am not making up: My mom has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is having a bit of a hard time of it. My dad sends us kids an e-mail “BAD CANCER NEWS.” It ends up being one of those “Fwd: fwd: fwd:” e-mails with multi-colored huge fonts and bad clip art, telling you not to microwave plastic wrap (because it CAUSES CANCER). I believe the ensuing conversation including the phrase, “I’m not kidding, Dad, don’t ever do that again.”
In our homegrown email dealio, if I send to someone and copy them, it only comes through once, even if I use a nickname equivalent. Maybe it’s time for an upgrade!
And can’t you limit Outlook to read-only, or private, or updatable by only some people?
That’s a wonderfully descruptive group name. I’m trying to craft that into an acronym. Would that be FOE TWO DiCs, pronounced foe-to-dicks?
(bolding mine)
What I love about communications at work are the wrong numbers that end up calling our PA system. Nothing like hearing the big voice in the ceiling saying “Hello. . . . hello. . . . is anyone there?”
Ah, something’s wrong with the server. Thanks for calling, I’ll get right on it.
Oh, you called my partner too to let him know? Well ok, I bet he’s on it too.
Thanks for emailing after you called, just to let us know there’s something wrong.
Thanks doubly for sending two emails, to the same support address, nicely titled “Hi ZipperJJ” and “Hi Zipper’s Partner,” just in case we forgot you called.
Ah yes, we see you called again, yes for the third time because last time we didn’t answer. We would have answered last time, but we have yet to have ONE MINUTE to work on the problem since you called/called/emailed/emailed/called/called today.
Honestly dude, we will let you know when we have fixed it. But we can’t fix if we are on the phone with you.
And we’ll be sure to remember your surefire attention-getting tactic next month when I’m sure your credit card will be declined, again, like it is every month. I guess our one friendly email reminder a month is just not enough for you.
She probably also asks for a read receipt on every email she sends out.
I hate read receipts from people who I don’t think have any business knowing when I read their particular email. If you are my boss, my boss’ boss, or someone I’m working on a project with and you need to legitimately make sure I’ve read your email, then fine.
If you’re: a vendor, a student who I’m helping with reference questions or someone who has no real reason to know that I’ve read your email, then I will reject the sending of said read receipt. That’s why one of the first things I did was set up my preferences to ask me before sending every read receipt.
Corollary: if you’re emailing it to me to ask if it’s real or a hoax, I am more than happy to ALWAYS inform you it’s a hoax.
New Rule, however: Do not send it to me, then have the audacity to come up with “Snopes.com isn’t a real source, because it’s just some internet site.” That will unleash the fury of a thousand long haired declawed cats intent on making your face their new playtoy.
Also, we got voicemail for everyone at work now. My mother knows somebody who works in the next building over. EVERY DAY I get a call from my mom on my cell phone asking why I haven’t set up voicemail yet.
No, she’s not my boss. No, she doesn’t even work in the same company. She just wants to be able to leave me inane messages. I asked her if her keyboard broke because we always got emails just fine.
Sweet Jesus, you can direct dial PA systems??? I think I’ve got a new hobby.
Attention customers, we have a hazardous waste situation in aisle seven. Please evacuate immediately by the loading dock doors in the back of the building. Evacuate by the REAR DOORS ONLY, the front doors are not safe, repeat NOT SAFE. This is not a drill.
