Tuesday, August 08, 2006

A Lesson Learned

When asking a colleague to take care of something for you – something that is their job, mind you, not a favor that you are asking them to do - do not be overly-colloquial in your email requesting that they handle it. Phrases like,

I don’t have a clue what this woman is talking about. Any information you know would be appreciated cause I'm lost.

just don’t look good in the forwarded email your colleague may choose to send to said woman.

Not good at all.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

We've all been there, I'm sure. Heck, Monkey once sent a section wide (including the higher-ups in the section) e-mail (Reply to All) that stated "SCREW YOU"! Of course, it was in response to heckling from SRH, but still pretty embarrassing! I'm sure my turn is right around the corner!

Tree Monkey

Anonymous said...

People are stupid.

Anonymous said...

I just realized that it might look like that was directed at you, which- not my intention! I meant the recipients- probably too stupid to realize what you did. The mental "shrug" I inserted before that post just really didn't translate into text. It's fine. :)

Christina said...

Wow, yeah, that's a big mistake. What was this in reference to?

Zany Mama said...

Tree Monkey-
Hmm! It's amazing that this little story you shared about other monkey actually did make me feel a little better. I am, apparently, quite capable at using the hurt of others to alleviate my own pain. Go figure.

lsig-
People are indeed stupid - appallingly so at times. One of the reasons I stopped helping them for money, really.

lsig-
Really, even if you hadn't put your clarification, I would have chosen to believe that you were talking about the recipient because, hey, you're MY friend not hers, and it's just common-friends-sense to side with your friend, not a stranger.

Christina-
Don't I know it!

The issue was that I was contacted by someone's assistant about a "workshop" that my office is holding in October. Now, my office may have up to 9 different workshops going on in any given month, and I don't know about most of them, because they're not my responsibility. (Part of this part-time working thing is that it forces me to ruthlessly prioritize my tasks and let everyone else take care of their own stuff).

Since the person who wanted into the workshop was a VIP, I knew it needed to get handled quickly so I asked our office assistant - who knows everything happening around the office - to handle it.

Hence my flip email, hence my absolute mortification a short time later.

belsum said...

I am so anal about deleting anything that may be misconstrued in the depths of an email chain before hitting send!

Zany Mama said...

Belsum-
Would that everyone - and most importantly one person in my office - had your sense of, well, your common sense.

Zany Mama said...

You know what else is dangerous in the hands of technology dunces?

Access databases that you don't want messed with and pneumatic staplers... Painful lessons, both.

belsum said...

Access databases that you don't want messed

Tell me about it! I feel your pain there....

Zany Mama said...

belsum-
Hmmhmmm.