I will cop to sending emails I would probably be mildly embarrassed by, but not in a get in trouble sort of way.
I’m so old I can remember recieving inappropriate faxes.
About a year or so ago, our entire department was forwarded an email that started out describing a bug in our main product. These kinds of email were common at the time, we weren’t that organized and when things went wrong, an email went out to everyone in the hopes that someone would know what the hell was going on.
But if you read the entire email, it actually was a thread. One that started out with the original sender saying something along the lines of “This is certainly Joe Smith’s fault. Could you keep track of how many times you ask him to fix it before he actually does it? He has a history of blowing off work and I need to document it so I can take action.”
The email thread then went on between the two original recipients, talking about the bug and proposing solutions. By the time it went to the whole department, it was supposed to have been truncated with the bit about Joe Smith removed, but… it wasn’t.
Pretty cringe-worthy. Joe Smith (obviously not his real name) came back with a butthurt response, and I think he quit pretty soon after.
I had one of those, although it wasn’t awkward. Someone used Reply All to ask a question, instead of Reply. Then someone used Reply All to tell them not to use Reply All to ask a question, then someone used Reply All to tell them to stop using Reply All. Then it was open season, with every comedian joining in with a Reply All telling people to stop using Reply All.
I finally had to make a rule to send that thread to junk mail.
I haven’t, but years ago the teacher in the room next to me happened to be in the office looking for a floppy to store something on. The principal overheard and offered her a spare one of his.
The teacher went back to her room, opened it up, and stored on it was an email from another teacher to the principal complaining about the teacher who was now reading it.
It was uncomfortable for all of us because the teacher in the rom next to me marched down the hallway and confronted the writer of the email. During the school day. While class was in session.
When I was in the Pentagon, I opened my email to find a Major had sent out a Reply all to an email regarding coordination of some staff work. I think it went out to 30-40 people. In that email she made a remark about a general officer that was less than tactful.
The General was in the CC list and responded with a rather sharp missive, also reply all.
For the rest of the day the Major and the General exchanged emails regarding her (serious) faux pas, and neither of them had good sense enough to stop using Reply All.
It was excruciatingly embarrassing, and yet, like a train wreck, it was impossible to look away.
I wanted to email her and tell her to stop emailing, walk over to the General and apologize, but I didn’t know her, and apparently no one else cared enough about her to tell her to stop, so it went on waaaay longer than it should have.
Why government offices even allow Reply All to be on the ribbon is beyond me.
Because if it weren’t for the Reply All button, we’d have no entertainment to break up the monotony of the day:)
My way of avoiding doing this at one job was to send all my snarky shit to my friends via text (back when people didn’t text all the time) or personal emails. We all had easy access to each other’s computers so even inadvertent snooping would have been way too easy, much less malignant, intentional trouble-making.
I’m not shaming people who do otherwise. That’s just my tip of the day.