I didn’t think this still happened in 2018 . . . I opened my email to see 50 emails, from 50 different people, all with the same meaningless subject line. (In case you’re curious, it was “Re: Clerkships team.”)
There was no initial email: All 50 of the messages were of the form, “Hey, this email is a mistake. Please remove me from the list.”
You’d think that after the 40th person or so on the list had sent this email to everyone, the remaining people would know to just sit tight.
I was really, really tempted to go all retro on them and reply to the entire list with an all-caps message like this:
HEY! DON’T YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO REPLY-ALL TO THESE MESSAGES???
That would be the next logical step, followed of course by someone replying:
HEY YOU FOOL! WHY DID YOU REPLY-ALL WHEN TELLING PEOPLE NOT TO REPLY-ALL?
And then, of course:
I WISH EVERYONE WOULD JUST STOP EMAILING THE ENTIRE LIST LIKE THIS. CAN’T YOU ALL JUST STOP? I WISH I’D NEVER SUBSCRIBED TO THIS LIST IN THE FIRST PLACE!!
Back in the day, these exchanges could go on forever. Indeed, I’m feeling a bit of nostalgia right now, just thinking about it.
P.S. Hey! While writing this post, another email arrived:
And another. And another.
Didn’t anyone ever teach these people not to Reply All??
P.P.S. And 6 more in the last five minutes. It’s no big deal, it’s no problem at all to delete these. It’s just funny.
P.P.P.S. Yessss . . . at last, we have a winner:
P.P.P.P.S. A correspondent sent me a similar thread that happened at her university a few months ago which included this priceless reply (nested eight deep in the thread):
P.P.P.P.P.S. ALL-CAPS has finally arrived:
