I work for an engineer who submits plans for the county to review. A plan has been rejected by the county reviewer due to not having a paper showing the required calculations. We did the calculations a month ago but we may have forgotten to send the PDF scan paper. We send the PDF again. A few days later we get an email.

Reviewer: “File does not contain all of the calculations. Please submit the calculations.”

I review the calculations and sure enough, everything is there. I email him back.

Me: “All of the calculations you asked for are on the sheet. Can you review each page and tell us what is missing?”

He replies to me a few hours later.

Reviewer: “Oh, you are right. They are there. I didn’t know I could change pages in the PDF. Thank you so much for telling me about different pages.”

He had been a reviewer for over a decade and was in his early thirties. I guess they didn’t teach him that PDFs can have more than one page.

Our company submits engineering plans to the county for review. One of the review comments is to transfer a portion of the land for widening the road in the future. The permit reviewer’s message states, “Dedicate land. Proposed twenty feet from the centerline, making it a future forty-foot road.” The current road is sixty feet wide and the county has already taken the land decades ago.

Typically, this mistake is due to them using an online map program that is not accurate. For context, the first message that appears before you can even use the program is, “All maps are not to be used for official purposes.” We send a comment back saying the road is already dedicated as a land survey was done. A week later, the same comment returns. I call the reviewer on the phone.

Me: “Your comment says for us to dedicate land for a future forty-foot road. The road is already sixty feet and is thirty feet from the centerline. If we do that, the county will be giving the owner of the property land.”

Reviewer: “The map says it is only thirty feet, so please dedicate it.”

Me: “The map is not accurate. It even says so before you can open it. The land survey, which is accurate, says it is sixty feet. Does the county want to give us land?”

Reviewer: “The map can’t be wrong.”

It took a week and two supervisors to tell him to knock it off.

I have worked at the company for a little under twenty years. While I did start as a secretary, I have moved up to a commercial project manager and designer. However, due to how small our company is, I still answer the phones as a secretary. The owner/president will also be a secretary sometimes.

My boss, the owner, has told me to screen all calls to him early on. This is due to the company name being the same as his name, so everyone asks for my boss. This is so he doesn’t get scams or junk calls.

Me: “Hello, [Company] Office. How may I help you?

Caller: “Yes, I like to speak to Mr. [Boss], please.”

Me: “Sure, but first, could I take down some information on the purpose of the call?”

Caller: “Just tell him [Caller] is on the phone.”

We have at least three other clients with that name; however, I have never heard this voice before.

Me: “I’m sorry, I need more information as we have others with the same name. What type of job is this in reference to?”

Caller: “Just tell him that [Caller] is on the phone. He knows who I am.”

At this point, I think he is a scammer as this is a very common way to get past me.

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but we have at least three other clients at our office with the same name. I would need a job number or name of the job site.”

Caller: “The job number is 123456. Just tell him [Caller] is on the phone.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but without the information, I cannot pass you over to him.”

Caller: “So, I can’t speak to him? I need to talk with him. This is urgent.”

He is starting to get angry at me.

Me: “Sir, I’m sorry, but you can’t speak to him.”

At this point, because he hasn’t given me anything, I refuse to let him speak to my boss. This goes on for another minute before he gets the message.

Caller: “Fine. Bye.” 

He hangs up the phone. I think nothing of it until a week later when my boss comes over to me. 

Boss: “Did a [Caller] call?”

Me: “Maybe? Which one?”

Boss: “[Caller’s Full Name].”

Me: “That name doesn’t ring a bell.”

Boss: “Well, [Caller] is my sister-in-law’s husband. He said he tried to call the office to say that his wife is in the hospital. He spoke to you and said you were nasty to him and didn’t let him talk to me.”

I explain what happened and how [Caller] refused to say anything other than his name.

Boss: “Don’t worry too much about it. You did what I pay you to do.”

Me: “If he said he was a relative, then you know I would let the phone go right to you.”

My boss admitted that his relative most likely didn’t give enough information to pass him through as he is blunt and to the point.

I work in a small engineering office for a manufacturing company. I’ve been on the shop floor and am entering the office through the door, which I open (I thought) as normal. Apparently not.

Admin Assistant: “Don’t open the door so violently! You’re getting as bad as [Coworker #1].”

Me: “Was I? My apologies. I shall endeavour to open it in a calmer manner so I don’t become unhinged.”

As I go to sit down, I’m waiting for some comment, but there is nothing.

Me: “What, no reaction?”

Admin Assistant: “Nope!”

Coworker #2: “Well, I just silently shook my head.”

Me: “Oh, well.”

Just then, the door is flung open. [Coworker #1] enters and makes his way to his desk.

Me: *To [Coworker #1]* “Apparently, I open the door too violently.”

Coworker #1: “Who said that?”

Admin Assistant: “I did! You know I’m always telling you not to open the door so wildly; [My Name] is doing it just as badly.”

Me: “And she never even reacted to my pun!”

Coworker #1: “What pun was that?”

Me: “I said I would try to open it more calmly so I don’t become unhinged. Not even a groan! Maybe she likes my puns now. Maybe she… a doors them.”

Just then, from the other side of the office, comes a strangled noise.

Admin Assistant: “Urgh!”

I stick my arm in the air triumphantly.

Me: “There it is!”

I’m working for a multinational company that employs tens of thousands of staff; our site alone has about 700 employees. One afternoon, as I am merrily doing some design work, I get an email from someone at the corporate office. It’s completely blank and has been sent to everyone. I figure that someone accidentally sent this to everyone, hit delete, and go to get back to my work.

Then, a little message pops up.

Message: “[Email Sender] has requested a read receipt when the email has been read. Do you wish to send? Yes/No.”

Oh, dear. I hit no, figuring the sender probably wouldn’t appreciate a reminder of what they did. I also wonder how many people have their settings to automatically send the receipt without prompting. I manage about twenty seconds more work when I get another email alert. It’s a reply to the original email.

Reply #1: “?”

Someone has decided that the best response to a blank email was responding with a single question mark. But the “best” way of doing this was to hit Reply To All. I hit delete.

Message: “[Reply Sender] has requested a read receipt when the email has been read. Do you wish to send? Yes/No.”

The reply had inherited the Read Receipt request. I imagine the IT departments across various sites not being very happy as the email server starts to fill. I imagine their collective moods worsening when the next message appears.

Reply #2: “??”

This is followed shortly by…

Reply #3: “???”

…and…

Reply #4: “????”

…as a few people decided that this is funny. I guess it is, to a point. I and a few of my nearby colleagues laugh at the stupidity of these people and how they are going to get some grief for clogging the mail servers. All of these want Read Receipts, too. I think we reach “????????” before the emails start to change.

Reply #5: “Please remove me from this email chain.”

This is sent to everyone, of course; there are a few of those.

Reply #6: “Please stop using Reply To All as you are making the problem worse!”

The odd thing is that it wasn’t one person who sends that message; there are several. And they aren’t doing it independently. Each email includes all the text from previous emails, and I can see the previous warnings there.

Reply #7: “You’ve just hit Reply To All to send the message; don’t do that!”

…and so on. I have no idea if those who are adding their warnings are trying to be funny or helpful or are just desperate to be the one who gets everyone to shut up by having the last word. In any case, the last word comes through a few minutes later with a site-wide email from our IT manager.

IT Manager Email: “Please stop responding to the email that was sent in error. These responses are clogging the servers. The email network will be down for a period while we remove these emails”

This email does not request a read receipt. 

A day or so later, I see one of the IT staff and ask him about the events of that afternoon. He visibly deflates as the memories come back.

IT Guy: “We had to disconnect our server from the global network to stop anything else getting through and then go through the servers and strip out every single one. It took hours!”

Me: “What started it all?”

IT Guy: “One of the accountants at corporate was trying to test something and accidentally managed to send a blank message to everyone. You know the rest.”

Me: “What about all those who responded? I noticed that there were a couple of senior directors from this site who joined in the, uh… fun.”

IT Guy: “They were all spoken to. They were told in great detail about server space, exacerbating problems, and exponential growth!”