The "Reply All" phenomenon

Is there a name for this yet? It happens every so often at work, and is guaranteed to drive you nuts. Here's how it works:

1. Someone sends out an email to a DL (distribution list) with hundreds or thousands of people in it.
2. Someone else replies to this message
3. This sets off a chain of a whole bunch of people replying all to that message.
4. Then there's a whole string of "please remove me from the DL" reply alls.
5. Finally there's are a few geniuses who, of course, reply all, telling all the other people to quit using reply all.

This just happened this morning at work(I wonder if shmerham is on the same DL?) I think anyone involved after the original sender should be taken out back and shot.

I replied all to the NYC office of our firm the other day- fortunately it was nothing embarrassing (I was signing up to run for our Chase Corporate Challenge team). My officemate had a slightly more awkward episode, in which her three-year-old got ahold of her Blackberry and replied all to the entire firm. I can't remember exactly what it said, but it was along the lines of "fvhbweirwbvhba;;9gnfiufd."

Business JONGS. Happens all the time. The best one is when somebody starts the whole sequence by sending their time report to all 140,000 people in the firm. Then a selct handful of communication geniuses really get the ball rolling by replying to all telling the original offender to remove them from their list. :cussing:

Fucking morons do provide entertainment when things get stressful.

I can sort of understand the first wave of reply to alls. As telepariah said, they are just business JONGS. But what about those who feel compelled to tell them not to reply to all? They obviously understand the problem, yet they further it with their own email.

I will say it's frustrating to know the only way you can help is to do nothing more than delete all these emails as they come in.

what's worse is the folks who email their boss and your boss on every correspondence. this drives me wild. the fact is, whether you cc your mangager and mine makes no difference whether I do your lame ass request.

If the person that starts the DL does not send via BCC, that would be indicative of a larger problem...

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Originally Posted by DBdude

what's worse is the folks who email their boss and your boss on every correspondence.

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Hopefully the boss replies to these with "why the fuck are you cluttering my inbox with this useless shit?"

This has been a problem for at least the 20 years that I've had a reliable email address. It will not change.

My favorite recent one was when a junior associate at my law firm was out at a club and someone got a hold of his Blackberry. Hilarity naturally ensued.

This actually happened once at my last place of business where the IT folks sent out a mass mailing saying something to the effect of "be careful when replying to all, as our email server is on shaky ground and too many company wide emails can cause the server to crash."

Someone actually replied to all on this email, adding their two cents about "it being annoying or unprofessional too", thereby starting the above mentioned shitstorm chain reaction, and yes, crashing the email server.

Awesome.

With the dawn of these new "free wi-fi" cafes and bars, folks need to watch out. There is a place up on Greenwood Ave here in Seattle that serves 64 oz beers and has free wi-fi. When my buddy excused himself to lay some cable, his entire address book learned that he was living with a man and 6 cats.

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Originally Posted by commonlaw

There is a place up on Greenwood Ave here in Seattle that serves 64 oz beers and has free wi-fi.

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What place is that?

And, of course, commandeering someone's laptop/Blackberry while they're indisposed is a completely different phenomenon that what I decribed, and usually a lot funnier :)

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Originally Posted by The AD

What place is that?

And, of course, commandeering someone's laptop/Blackberry while they're indisposed is a completely different phenomenon that what I decribed, and usually a lot funnier :)

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Prost. Damn good Essen as well.

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Originally Posted by The AD

And, of course, commandeering someone's laptop/Blackberry while they're indisposed is a completely different phenomenon that what I decribed, and usually a lot funnier :)

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Not completely. Not when they take advantage of said access to reply to all. To a message sent by the managing partner. IIRC, said message was about the abuse of reply-to-all, but I can't find it.

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Originally Posted by commonlaw

Prost. Damn good Essen as well.

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Oh yeah, I've been there. They have a sister pub called Die Bierstube on Roosevelt near Ravenna.

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Originally Posted by The AD

Oh yeah, I've been there. They have a sister pub called Die Bierstube on Roosevelt near Ravenna.

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Hmmmm. I may be heading that way for lunch then, thanks for the reco. I need a beer to shake off the Fremont Solstice haze.

I am on the mailing list for the Crestone Music Festival and was just a minute ago privileged to receive the following reply to all.

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Originally Posted by Roman Valdez

This message is for Tom Dessain for reply to Roman Valdez:

Dear Tom,
Once again I would love the opportunity to interview Leon Russell for
broadcast several times before the CrestFest arrives. Could you please
provide some "contact info" on how I could set this up?

I tried numerous times to set John Mayall for interviewing but I never
got a response from him. I'm hoping to get more cooperation from Leon
Russell. I have seen him in concert many time and feel you have made a
great selection in booking him for the CrestFest. He is such an awesome
entertainer!!!!!!

I look forward to hearing from you very soon. I can't wait to get
started on putting an interview together for this event. If there is
anything else I can do to help, let me know!!!!

Respectfully,
Roman

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Just thought I'd share it since it is kind of out there for public consumption. That son of a bitch John Mayall, he never cooperated with me on anything either! :FIREdevil

I used to have a boss who had an auto-reply receipt sent back to him when ever I read his emails. It was pretty annoying at first, since most of them time I want to ignore email requests for a few hours.

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Originally Posted by Steven S. Dallas

I was signing up to run for our Chase Corporate Challenge team.

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Where are you and what do you do for the Company Steven?


I love the idiots that forward an email you've already received pointing out the importance of the email already received. I can usually count on at least two or three of these for an "important" message.


On the home front, I'm tired of the stupid bastards that forward a forward of a forward of a forward. I just love having to open umpteen attachments to get to the inane message contained within. As though if that weren't enough, these email JONGs clearly aren't smart enough to send the email to their entire address book - myself included - as a BCC.

Did I mention how much I hate receiving the email that tells me I have to forward it to 49 people in ten minutes or suffer the wrath of some unseen force for time and all eternity.

[/rant]

Sister's best friend thought she was just replying to her husband with a full on rant about her bitch mother in law.

Yep, you guessed it, inadverdantly hit 'reply all'....


classic...

Its even better when people set up the out of office reply as reply to all. Especially when two or more people on the DL do that at the same time.

What the fuck is an email?

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Originally Posted by Tye 1on

Sister's best friend thought she was just replying to her husband with a full on rant about her bitch mother in law.

Yep, you guessed it, inadverdantly hit 'reply all'....


classic...

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That's the kind of shit I'm talking about - when someone thinks they're replying to one person on the list and bitches about someone else on the list, thinking it's a private mail, and then hits......reply all.

hey, that's kinda like here.

Except we know it.

I forgot to mention the times when opposing counsel has replied-all and disclosed privileged information. My personal favorite was the one that boiled down to the guy thanking his colleague for attempting to follow up with me, because getting the information from me that they needed to make their case was like getting blood from a stone. Then someone replied-all to that with the agenda for their conference call. I replied to let them know that they'd accidentally included me in their discussions.

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Originally Posted by The AD

I can sort of understand the first wave of reply to alls. As telepariah said, they are just business JONGS. But what about those who feel compelled to tell them not to reply to all? They obviously understand the problem, yet they further it with their own email.

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I work at a rather large pharma company "campus" in NJ. About a week ago, I had to deal with about 60 e-mails after somebody sent out a query to the entire, multi thousand person "site e-mail list" about joining their vanpool.

1st e-mail: Want a way to save gas? Join a vanpool! Our group has an open spot. We leave at 7 AM from the GSP Exit xxx rest area in the morning and from building 82 at 4:30 in the afternoon.

An example of the first replies (to the entire ~5,000 person campus):
-sounds great! tell me more!
-I come from NW New Jersey. Do any vanpools come from there?
-I would do it, but the time isn't very good. Is there any chance to change that?

Followed by about 2 dozen "stop replying to all" e-mails.