Electronic Mail and the guy with the Mail Cart

 
OK,

I'm just saying here that email is probably the best or worst thing to happen to the modern office.

I mean do you remember the mail room?  You knew you "made" it in a company when you rated your own mailbox and the mail guy with the cart would stop by and be like Mr. Jeff you got some more mail sir.  One day when I grow up I'll get a mailbox too.

I felt so important like wow the Mail guy has to stop at my desk and hand me shit.  I'm somebody.  If the mail was important it would come by Fed Ex, UPS or those other guys that drive a yellow truck and do shit in Europe and Asia. 

Then electronic mail came out.  We invented new words like email instead of Electronic Mail, we all finally found a reason to use Shift +2 key, we all had to actually learn to type, spell checkers didn't exist, who knew what a mail client really was?  I remember going to the bookstore (remember those you kindle ass clowns?), and looked for a book on Outlook Express and NEVER found one because no one wrote one on just Outlook Express they just assumed you used Outlook or Lotus what the fuck notes.

Here is where shit got all fucked up.  In the "old days" you mailed something and could request a delivery confirmation.  The postman would have you sign this little green card and that card would then be mailed back to the sender so that the sender would "know" or could prove that you actually got the letter and signed for it.

So the ass clowns that invented email knew that digital crap could be deleted or altered so they didn't include this "confirmation technology" in the email protocols or language so someone thought oh shit I'll get a Pulitzer for this if I invent a way to do this with email.  Don't be an ass clown and send me bullshit about DSN's and the SMTP protocol please back the fuck up before you do that or I'll De-friend you.  RCPT TO:<> NOTIFY:Success, Delay (GFYS).

So now some guy somewhere says hey let's add an option to get a Read Receipt Confirmation from the email recipient.  Really bad idea guys. If you get a lot of email (Who doesn't since there isn't an email postage price to pay) then you probably do like most folks and triage your inbox.  As I'm doing Triage and using the Preview pane (Mixed feelings on this one) I sometimes get prompted for a Read Receipt.  It was that feeling of utter rage over this problem that drove me to blog tonight.

WHO THE FUCK REQUESTS A READ RECEIPT and WHO THE FUCK ACTUALLY SENDS THEM BACK and WHO THE FUCK MAKES A BUSINESS DECISION BASED ON THE ABSENCE OF A READ RECEIPT?

I tried to declare email bankruptcy today and I just took every email older than 30 days and marked them as read and moved to the Mail that I've Read Folder.  Fuck it I'm done.  Outlook is slow as shit because there are millions of unread email in there right now and this whole Select All Copy All Move All command is prone to just lock up and die based on the volume of email I'm trying to move and right in the middle of the long Please wait I get a dozen or so Read Receipt Confirmation modal windows?  I mean seriously What the fuck is this? 

If you use Read Receipts please stop using them and go shoot yourself.


Posted by Jeff Estes wishing you would subscribe to my blog and sponsor my lunch breaks.