Reply to All

What is it about the “Reply to All” button in email that is so tempting to people? I am not totally against it per se – it does have its place. However, people have been getting too happy with their Reply to All button over the last couple of days here and it’s driving me bananas. Yesterday I received an email at work from another employee who I don’t know. I couldn’t even count how many people were on the email – most of them I didn’t know either. It was a completely non-work related email, and I’m still scratching my head as to what possessed this guy to send this email out to all these people he didn’t know. I only briefly looked at it (thought it might possibly be a virus, so I didn’t really even open it – just scanned it through the preview pane in Outlook). It was something about a baby that had been burned, and the parents would receive 3 cents for each time the email was passed on. Right (and maybe if I do it fast enough, Bill Gates will send ME some money too, and I will have 5 good things happen to me within 24 hours!!!). I guess this guy decided he’d try to make them a whole bunch of money by sending it to everyone in the global address book. Then 2 more people must have thought, “Hey – if I forward this email out to the same distribution list, I’ll make this poor baby’s parents even MORE money.” So they did. This is when it started. Reply to All took over. Since yesterday afternoon I have received no fewer than 15 emails from people who Replied to All asking to be removed from the list and expressing confusion over how they ended up on the list in the first place. A few asked to be removed saying they do not accept this type of email. Then there’s the handful of people who Replied to All to chastise those who Replied to All. One girl even called everyone “dumb” for Replying to All (…in her email, which she Replied to All…). One lady warned people that they needed to stop or they would get their access taken away (not sure why she cares – let them get their access taken away…as long as it doesn’t impact my work, why should I care?). OK. So what is it about this button that is so tempting? I agree – it is annoying when people Reply to All in a situation like this, yet I have managed to keep my mouse from clicking that button and sending a message out to everyone. I just don’t get it. I think some people just lack some common sense for sure. But that doesn’t make it any less puzzling why people continue to do it.

Looks like hardwood installation is underway. Sort of. Apparently Lowe’s messed up. Despite the fact that we were very clear when we purchased the wood that we are on a concrete slab, and despite the fact that glue was added to our order total (to glue the wood to the concrete), when the installer got to Lowe’s this morning, they rented him a staple gun and told him he’d be stapling the wood down. WRONG! Staples don’t go into concrete very easily – you'd think the home improvement store would know that. In the meantime, they are ripping out the carpet (my mom said the guy keeps sneezing – I told you we have a lot of dust!). After they do that, they’ll go back up to Lowe’s and get their money back on the staple gun, and then they’ll go somewhere else to get glue (because evidently they won’t use the kind of glue that Lowe’s sells – something about it being water-based, and they only use acrylic-based glue). So now we are trying to get a refund on the glue that we purchased since the installer will not be using it. Fun times!