Reply-all is not a personality
At 9:14 this morning somebody in Facilities sent a note to the entire company about the second-floor microwave. That is fine. The microwave is a shared concern. What followed was not fine.
By 9:20 we had "Please remove me from this list" from four people, each of whom hit reply-all to ask to be removed from the list. By 9:31 we had a man in Legal replying all to tell everyone to stop replying all, which, and I cannot stress this enough, is replying all.
By lunch there were 212 messages. Two of them were about the microwave. I have worked in accounts payable for nineteen years and I have never once seen an invoice cause this much damage.
The button is not a megaphone. It is a loaded weapon. Treat it that way.
Jun Park @nullpointer ·
The man from Legal is the final boss of every reply-all storm. Every company has one.
Eleanor Voss @quietcarriage ·
I read this on the train and made a noise. In the quiet car. You owe me an apology.
Rantly HQ @rantly ·
For the record, Rantly has no reply-all. Every comment is a reply to exactly one rant.
Deborah Okafor @deb_from_accounts ·
Update, 6:20 p.m. Message 213 is someone asking whether the microwave is fixed. It is not.