Work Emails

[magenta321]

Today in my inbox, and the inboxes of most of the people I work with, was a couple of emails from a coworker. They were of the "FW: FW: FW:" variety.

Email 1. Described John McCain's son who is in the military. While I am not a McCain supporter, the email didn't bother me, until I got to the end and there was a quote from "Obama's book" which said (and I'm paraphrasing, and going from memory) something to the effect that if the worst happens he (Obama) will stand by Muslims.

I went onto Fight the Smears and looked for quotes from Obama's book, and sure enough, that's a smear. They completely changed Obama's words in the email. It didn't even mention Muslims.

Email 2. The author was outraged that senators had voted against English as the language of the US. It went on to mention the names of four senators who voted this way... Obama's name was listed. The piece ended with a quote from Abe Lincoln, and again, I'm paraphrasing and going from memory, but it was something to the effect that if the Senate is not working for the will of the people, they should be hung.

To me, this was blatantly racist. I don't really care how anyone feels about English as our national language. That's not the issue. The issue is that someone is sending out emails insinuating that we should HANG one of our presidential candidates. And gee, it happens to be the black guy that they suggest we hang.

I really don't want to cause problems at work, and normally I ignore political emails. We have different opinions, and I can respect that. But do you agree that these emails crossed the line?

If you agree that these emails crossed some line, how would you deal with them. Do you bother trying to educate morons who will believe any "fact" they are emailed? I already feel like a broken record when someone brings up an email and I ask "did you check to make sure that was true before you forwarded it?"

Email is a powerful and scary thing. It sort of reminds me of the Salem Witch Trials.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Reply (or Reply All, if it's a common group thing):

"I would rather not discuss politics with co-workers and would appreciate not receiving any additional political forwards for any party. Thank you."

Or tip off IT or the boss that people's work emails are crossing a line into personal and tell them about federal e-discovery regulations and how personal emails on the work server can royally screw the company big-time.

[jgibson2[$]]

1. It was the DEMOCRAT they suggested we hang. I think it's probably a coincidence that he's black.

Oh, and I'd forward that email to your email admin person or to whoever in HR is responsible for seeing that people don't abuse their emails -- DO NOT RESPOND. There is no point. The most likely response (if there is one at all) from the PTB is a reminder that political emails aren't appropriate on work emails, which is what I'd want. I don't think that particular political email is any more offensive than most. It simply doesn't belong at work. I've seen worse, but I really don't want my work inbox cluttered with crap. I have to deal with enough of it on my home email.

[theworm[$]]

What Judy sent. The issue is that the work place is not the place to send that kind of e-mail - it's inappropriate and probably against company policy. If this person wants to send it from his/her personal e-mail to you, then I would tell him/her that you don't want to have political discussions or receive that kind of e-mail and to not send any more.

[pluckyduck]

The same guy with the mileage rate problem does *not* want work time and resources wasted with this crap, I'll tell you right now.

What Judy said.

[rmthunter]

Those are offensive enough that I'd report them to whoever they should be reported to. It's the custom where I work that any e-mails not work-related be titled "SPAM: and then the subject" and that political e-mails, except for notifications of events that might be of interest to staff, are out of bounds.

[thinkerlady[$]]

I agree--not appropriate for the workplace. I got a similar email last week Margaret, from my cousin. It had several "quotes" from OBama's books, and all three were distorted and not the direct quote, but claimed to be. I remember the Muslim one you mentioned. I looked it up on Snopes, and sure enough it was there--the exact email. Since it was my cousin, and it was home, I responded sending the Snopes link, and explaining that the quotes had been distorted and it isn't fair and even if you do not support the person, twisting his words are smear tactics. I asked my cousin to send me only factual emails about politics. He probably isn't happy, but that is how I feel.
In the workplace, well, emails such as these would be a huge problem at my school. I know it would be a huge problem where my hubby and kids work too.

[rmthunter]

We're actually pretty loose about it at work, but I think it's because people don't abuse it. Besides, we're all a bunch of f***ing hippie liberal artists, writers and musicians. (I mean, the kind of "spam" we send out is about our band's next gig or someone on staff is teaching a yoga class.) We'd probably pass an e-mail like that around for laughs.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

That's my workplace too but my coworkers send me the Amber Alerts! and Reusing Water Bottles Will Give You Cancer! and Someone Is Kidnapping Women With Perfume Samples At The Mall! emails. I'm always sending the Snopes links right back at them. One person finally replied to my Snopes link with "I don't know why I continue to forward things to you." I replied "Me neither " They've sent me less, but it's not because they're actually checking them out, they're still sending out the false information to all and sundry but just leaving my name off the DL.

[rmthunter]

Well, maybe it's that I work for one of the oldest alternative weekly newspapers in the country -- fact-checking is sort of a habit there. (Yes, we still do journalism at the Reader.)

[pluckyduck]

We have finally squelched the "entire firm" emails. That was the most annoying - subset of folks who think the Entire Firm must be warned to register their cell numbers on the do not call about to expire. Etc.

There are 125 people on Entire Firm. Pull out your calculator for lost work time there. (One of a group of us would always Snopes back right away, but that just doubled the work time lost.)

The controller threw a minor Entire Firm email fit on the last one. Haven't had one crop up in at least a few months........

But of course people still circulate all kinds of crap in smaller friend groups. The funniest is when somebody accidently hits "Call Out Group" from the outlook address book when they meant to hit "Cathy" or something. "Call Out Group" is me, the company principals, the controller, all the exec level folks. My favorite wasn't a Snopes, it was a "how drunk did we all get last night" kinda email.

But we still get the Snopes ones. (What is wrong with people? Google is right there. Use it!)

[Prepoia[$]]

I have an email crazy aunt that "doesn't believe a word of what snopes says!"

[rmthunter]

Prepoia said

I have an email crazy aunt that "doesn't believe a word of what snopes says!"

But she'll believe anything she gets via e-mail, right?

[jgibson2[$]]

On my home email, I will occasionally send a Snopes link to the sender. I usually do that with a "reply all" in the hope of humiliating them into deleting me from there FW list. It's worked a couple of times. For friends who are relatively new to email, I do it privately. MOST of them have started fact-checking first.

At work, that's not my job, so I just delete. If I get anything really offensive, it's going to the email gods for further handling.

Oh and our email gods squelched the email everybody button too. Only a very few select people get to do that any more -- and the ones who were doing it in the past were fairly high-ranking executives. They were work-related. They just didn't relate to 95% of the staff. In a hospital with 300+ beds and multiple clinics, that's well over a thousand employees to view and delete crap. I did send one whiny "Why do I have to read this?" email before the hammer came down. I suspect mine was one of hundreds.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

jgibson2 said

On my home email, I will occasionally send a Snopes link to the sender. I usually do that with a "reply all" in the hope of humiliating them into deleting me from there FW list. It's worked a couple of times. For friends who are relatively new to email, I do it privately. MOST of them have started fact-checking first.

I've done that too (the reply all) and with the same intention and in the same circumstances (after I've privately shown them where Snopes.com is a couple times first).

[eris esoteric]

Prepoia said

I have an email crazy aunt that "doesn't believe a word of what snopes says!"

[emeleel]

[Prepoia[$]]

So.....my aunt was right! You can't believe anything Snopes says
I'll apologize someday.

[thinkerlady[$]]

I just got one of those emails, and it DID check out to be true on Snopes. Evidently there is a virus going around........"postcard" or "Postcard from Hallmark"...I don't remember the exact title, but the email gave a snopes link, I checked it and it is true.

[Prepoia[$]]

I checked out the same one! They sure do travel don't they (true and false)?

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Well yeah, but the "You've received a Hallmark postcard" email virus has been around for about forever. Your antivirus program should have the stuff to block it by now, if you've kept your definitions update subscription up to date

[thinkerlady[$]]

Yeah I know. But it is the first time I have gotten that email. Also I noticed on the Snopes page that there was a May 2008 update to the notice.