Crazeegeekchick.com

One neat thing about having a blog is that I can rant about things that bug me.  Being a web application developer, I'm online quite a bit.  I have lots of contacts, and I get lots of email.  This is a mixed blessing.  I've a ton of Outlook rules to sift everything into its appropriate place, and that makes managing email a bit easier.  There are those few however, just frustrate the stuffing out of me.  I've come up with a few personas to describe such senders.  I do realize that a lot of these types of folks just don't know any better, but my patience has worn thin.

1.  Mr. Box-in-a-Box. - Have you ever had anybody give you a gift that contained a box, which contained a box, which contained a box, which contained a box, which contained a gift?  I've received and given such gifts as jokes.  And yes, giving and receiving such a gift was mildly amusing.  Mr. Box-in-a-Box is the guy who has taken this concept and applied it to the digital world.  Each email from him contains another email which must be opened, only to find another email which must be opened, etc etc until finally I get to the "gift" - which is the latest urban legend or scam suggesting that I should forward the inane content to everybody in my contact box or else I don't love Jesus or lightning will kill my dog.  It's entirely possible that Mr. Box-in-a-Box does not understand how annoying this is.  As a sheer act of passive aggression, if I have to click to open more than one message, I immediately send it to the deleted items with a small voodoo curse uttered upon the sender.  I wonder if my father has gotten that case of crabs yet...  A plea to Mr. Box-in-a-Box:  Dude - it's called COPY and PASTE!  Check it out.

2.  The Spammer's Dream. - This unfortunate soul provides countless email addresses to spammers everywhere by including the entire list of everyone to whom the email has been sent since its inception.  These emails are usually about 6 full pages long with the first five pages containing nothing but a list of everybody to whom the previous list of everybodies has forwarded the mail.  The grand finale is much like the above gift in Mr. Box-in-a Box's last box - usually not much of a finale to speak of.  But hey, if I wanted to sell a time share or a penis enlargement product, I'd have a gold mine of contact addresses.  Maybe the delete button has broken off his keyboard...

3.  Ms All-Or-Nothing.  - If it's worth forwarding, then it's worth forwarding to my entire address book, right?  WRONG!  I'm very flattered that I'm a member of so many people's address book.  I'm slightly amused, however that I can get the same exact email from 10 members of my family in one day.  These are the same family members who fall into The Spammer's Dream category, so surely they must know it has been sent to me already.  Heck, oftentimes, I sent the doggone mail in the first place and then I get it again and again and again.  Nope they are NOT the "I hope I get this back" emails.  I'm done with it guys - don't need it again.

4.  Apocalyptic Maximus. - The world is coming to an end.  Did you know that?  There are stalkers in every Walmart Parking lot and I should never go out alone without somebody containing a Y chromosome.  French fries can now give you cancer.  George Bush wants to secretly blow up the United States.  Oh and lookie, there's another accusation denouncing me as being ashamed of Jesus if I don't forward the mail.  Apocalyptic Maximus is pretty sure that every bad thing that could possibly happen WILL happen, unless she saves the day by sending the warnings to all her friends and family.  This person believes every single urban legend found online and wants to make sure to save us all from such horrible fates.  This is the same person who calls Entertainment Tonight a valid news source and thinks that the Republicans are conspiring to turn the middle class into slaves.  Apocalyptic Maximus has been added to my Junk Mail senders - I can't even deal with her anymore.  I keep trying to humiliate Apocalyptic Maximus  (who by the way is also Ms All-or-Nothing), by hitting Reply ALL with a link to www.snopes.com denouncing her email de jour, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't get it.

Joking aside, these are things that I personally feel should be common sense.  There's this neat feature called a blind CC.  That feature really protects peoples' privacy and also eliminates that huge list of forwarded email addresses.  Just a little bit of deleting the junk out of a message can really help ensure that your message gets read!  Taking the time to just send the content of the message instead of 40 email containers containing containers - well that one is just a no-brainer. 

If you are in my address book, then the odds are that I know you pretty well.  I will show my respect and affinity for you by forwarding you only content that I think you will enjoy or appreciate.  That is my way of giving a little electronic gift.  If you are a man, I probably will NOT forward you the maxi-pad joke, or the "National Sisters Week" encouragement emails.  I generally will never use the Reply All button unless I actually KNOW everybody in the original "To" list and I really intend for them to read my response.  I will delete irrelevant junk from the message so that you get ONLY the message content.   If you sent me the email in the first place, I will most likely remember that and not send it back to you again. I will not publicly disclose your email address in a message sent to numerous senders.  I respect your privacy.  I also respect you enough to verify some of the "informative" junk that comes into my email box before sending it to you.  I will never demand that you forward my messages to 10 of your friends.  You will NOT receive a message from me with "FW: FW: FW: FW: blah blah blah" in the title.  I will never accuse you of hating Jesus, murdering animals or being a Nazi.

Whew - now that I'm finished ranting - I think I'll go check my email.