Green Curtain

I regularly send emails to my entire department – all 4,000 plus employees. Typically, this results in a barrage of ‘Out of Office’ automated responses. My most recent mass email, however, evoked major activity. In addition to automated responses, staff were replying with comments and not just to me, rather, to all.

This behavior was quite upsetting to some so they followed up, also replying to all, with angry instructions advising against such activity. Once others received the unsolicited instructions, they purposely replied to all. Responses varied, but all caps seemed to be a popular option. Some of my favorites were:

Can you guys stop responding to all?

I have no coorispondence.   (Apparently they didn’t have SpellCheck either)

REMOVE ME from this LIST!

I am getting SO many emails from everyone about this issue. 🙂

Everyone stop responding on line-it’s getting annoying!!!!~!

Does everyone need to respond to this email?

GOOD GRIEF!  STOP HITTING REPLY ALL!!!!!    (No, this wasn’t from Charlie Brown)

Dude all these messages really need to go to every one?

I’m quite certain that the entire department would like to know that I have not had any correspondence either.

How about NO ONE reply?

Please just email the sender privately.

Sorry for another “reply all”, but it’s a Monday morning, and I’m sure others are thinking it, so I’m saying it: Could we just respond to the sender on this?

i’M NOT AMUSED.  i DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS.

Five hours and hundreds of emails later, even though I was finding this activity quite comical, I opted to send an email etiquette reminder to everyone so as to put the angry at ease. Nothing like reminding 4,000 adults who hide behind the green curtain of technology that they are acting like children.

If only I could have just quoted the Wizard, preferably in all caps, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”