Anybody elses workplace abuse email?
Discussion
I just want to get an idea of what's normal here as I've NEVER worked anywhere like where I am at the moment.
Absolutely nobody talks to anyone, it's a small co. 60ish employees and every f
king little thing, every simple request, is sent by email copying in fk knows how many others. Entire conversations conducted by email when a face to face meeting would be more appropriate. They even send emails to people sitting about 6 feet from them!
It's doing my fking nut in, not just that it's so impersonal and depressing but as the IT monkey I have to deal with the consequences. Several users are approaching the 60000+ mark causing all sorts of aggro with the client software not playing ball and they expect a magic cure that doesn't involve culling any of them.
It's like everyone is watching their back and want proof of whatever they said 2 fking years ago.
If anyone even mentions the 'E' word now it's enough to send me into a violent rage.
Absolutely nobody talks to anyone, it's a small co. 60ish employees and every f
king little thing, every simple request, is sent by email copying in fk knows how many others. Entire conversations conducted by email when a face to face meeting would be more appropriate. They even send emails to people sitting about 6 feet from them! It's doing my f
king nut in, not just that it's so impersonal and depressing but as the IT monkey I have to deal with the consequences. Several users are approaching the 60000+ mark causing all sorts of aggro with the client software not playing ball and they expect a magic cure that doesn't involve culling any of them.It's like everyone is watching their back and want proof of whatever they said 2 f
king years ago.If anyone even mentions the 'E' word now it's enough to send me into a violent rage.
Odie said:
It quite likely that their is a cultural problem within the business that means everyone has to get everything in writing in order to cover themselves. Unfortunately
Yes, this ^.My old bank used to have the culture of a**e covering, which meant that everything was conducted by e-mail so there was evidence of what was asked/done, and of course who was asked to do something..
maxrider said:
Absolutely nobody talks to anyone
maxrider said:
They even send emails to people sitting about 6 feet from them!
maxrider said:
as the IT monkey
You're the IT monkey, stop reading their email, of course no one's going to talk to you. 
Most companies have problems with staff not communicating enough!
Jasandjules said:
Odie said:
It quite likely that their is a cultural problem within the business that means everyone has to get everything in writing in order to cover themselves. Unfortunately
Yes, this ^.My old bank used to have the culture of a**e covering, which meant that everything was conducted by e-mail so there was evidence of what was asked/done, and of course who was asked to do something..
I've experinced this as well. I think, like most tools, e-mail is very useful and very effective when used appropriately. I always preferred a face-to-face conversation rather than an e-mail (which can be ignored), but there were many instances where sending an e-mail would get a far better result. Its to do with knowing what to use in certain scenarios.
Odie said:
It quite likely that their is a cultural problem within the business that means everyone has to get everything in writing in order to cover themselves. Unfortunately
I work with a public sector organisation like that, about 12 people get CC'd into every email, even the ones just acknowleldging they got the email.It comes about when peope get criticised a lot and made to think that if they are not in the loop someoene is planning to kill them. I deliberately only respond to the original sender, and make them do the FF bit if they are so anal that they don;t trust each other.
I keep everything... I have a 100mb limit on my inbox and then the personal network drive is my archive.
I use windows Desktop search to search emails. Archive is currently 3GB in just under a year.
I have to do this as I have been bitten in the past by complete a-holes and I unfortunately used to delete emails over X months and one came back and caused me hassle... once bitten, never again!!
I use windows Desktop search to search emails. Archive is currently 3GB in just under a year.
I have to do this as I have been bitten in the past by complete a-holes and I unfortunately used to delete emails over X months and one came back and caused me hassle... once bitten, never again!!
maxrider said:
VEA said:
We use Mimecast for this reason, every employee has a limit of 100MB on their inbox, some (directors) are allowed an archive file. Otherwise it is tough titties!
100Mb!!! 100Mb!!! some would fill that up in a morning, some users have over 4Gb! 
I've just looked, the biggest archive is 6.5GB, with an other 1GB for current mail.
I'm a 3rd party contractor at work, so all requests from the client to do anything at my work go through email, even to the point of one of the Clients managers sitting next door to a colleague of mine emailed my colleagues line manager (based 10 miles away) to ask the line manager to ask my colleague a basic operations question, and then said Client manager going mental when she got a reply directly as it hadn't followed the proper communtication chain.
Everything to the client has to be emailed and cc'd (CYA'd as it is known here). Myself and my line managers do all problem sorting face to face of over the phone, but we still then need to email the solution to prove we have an audit trail. It drives me mad.
Everything to the client has to be emailed and cc'd (CYA'd as it is known here). Myself and my line managers do all problem sorting face to face of over the phone, but we still then need to email the solution to prove we have an audit trail. It drives me mad.
Dupont666 said:
I keep everything... I have a 100mb limit on my inbox and then the personal network drive is my archive.
I use windows Desktop search to search emails. Archive is currently 3GB in just under a year.
That sounds similar to what we have. Any email older than 13 months is automatically removed from our Outlook mailbox (inbox, sent items and all other folders) and stored in the archive (Enterprise Vault). I use windows Desktop search to search emails. Archive is currently 3GB in just under a year.
I used to work in an office where literally everything was conducted over Skype. To someone sat next to your desk 4 feet away. There was a this project skype, that project skype, off topic skype, you name it. About 5 different skype windows. It was handy on technical stuff as you had a reference but it was a strange way of working. I think it was also cos it sounds like everyone is busy working tapping away at keyboards but the off topic skype was where it all was. Most strange.
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