I had written him a letter,
Or email, to be precise.
The tone was less than friendly,
And the premise not-so-nice.
Still I knew no harm could come to me –
‘Twere a trifle, in the end;
The distribution list was small,
Mostly just my friends.
But as I hit send — alas! over
The day was cast a pall,
The ominous realisation:
I had sent it — “Reply All”.
The deed was done, the message sent,
There now was no way back,
But would it be too much to ask:
A button marked “Retract”?
The bitter office worker,
Catalogued his colleagues’ flaws
In the minutes of the meeting,
To the sound of gentle snores.
“Item 1:” he wrote, “the boss’s
Ass is wider than a bus,
And the secretary’s breath
Will someday be the death of us.”
He found his notes the next day
Pinned onto the cork-board wall,
With his termination papers,
They had gone out - “Reply All”.
What pain could be avoided,
By a simple check for that
Most innocent of buttons
On your email or your chat?
The President was at his desk,
Counting out his armies;
One for Iraq, Afghanistan
And next week (shh!) - The Maldives.
“But first let’s sort out Russia,
Before I put my foot in,”
Thought the President in feisty mood,
“I’ll write direct to Putin!”
So he penned a draft for Connie,
Giving Vlad the old what-for;
WWIII started with a button all right,
The one labeled “Reply All”.
So let that be a lesson
For your missives, large or small;
Check to whom the heck you’re sending
That there message - “Reply All”
Oh, you poor bugger. I do hope everything’s okay, Merc.
As for Bush, we’ve only got a few more months, and Chaney would probably have to draw him a diagram showing him how to get to the room with the button in. Even then Cocaine George would probably end up in the loo, pressing that button,I hope.
Trouble is, he’s still there, isn’t he?
Liked the poem, btw. Hope its not based on something that really happened to you.
I think it’s prudent to write every email that goes out over your name as if you were pushing the “reply all” button.
Because most email programs also have a very convenient “forward” button.
I wouldn’t worry too much. If he pays as much attention to the email as he did to his intelligence gatherers, he’ll hit the delete button and Condi will sack the messenger and then invade Iraq.
Katz, that’s my policy too.
Why can’t microsoft and Mac simply add a popup to OK the “reply all” message so we’ve got a second to go “oh wait!”
Just as bad as is when the Reply-To header for mailing lists is set to the mailing list instead of the sender. Have seen lots of rather embarassing messages because of that.
btw there are some mail programs that have a recall message for email, at least those sent within an organisation. Have to be quick enough to do the recall before other people retrieve their mail though.
“Trouble is, he’s still there, isn’t he?”
Indeed ,sadly, he still is. Welcome back Paul.
What I love is the top work of Condy, behind the scenes, in Georgia and now a sensitively timed deal in Poland.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7573686.stm
If only, the only button these people were around was in the dunny. Even if they could always be expected to piss on the floor. And not clean up.
RAS-Putin did say to George once,’ It’s hard to keep secrets these days’.
(This was shortly after the Robert Hanssen incident btw. How hard to be a cagey Bee these days.)