Dangers of Email − 25 March, 2008
A colleague who speaks English as a second language invited me into his cube last week. He showed me some email he’d gotten, and wanted to know what I made of it. Someone in another department had requested a script my colleague had written. My colleague sent the script, but in a copy/paste error, left out a line initializing a variable. This person’s email response was:
“I see that count is initialized from thin air.”
He didn’t include any other information. My colleague had replied with the missing line of code, not explaining that it was a copy/paste error. The person’s next response was:
“So, D---, are you misquoting me?”
My colleague wanted to know what this person meant by “misquoting”. He knew the definition of the word, but he didn’t think it fit the context. I told my colleague that the message sounded snarky.
“Snarky, what is that?”, my colleague asked. Uh, oh, I thought. How do I explain ‘snarky’? I knew what it meant, but wasn’t sure how to define it. “Kind of sarcastic”, I explained. Then I said, “It sounds kind of like this person is making fun of you.” Finally, I concluded, “It sounds like this person is being an a—hole”. I was in a bad mood at the time.
My colleague wanted to know whether he should reply. I asked him whether he needed any further information from this person. He shook his head. I replied, “Then take the high ground. Don’t reply. Just delete it.”
Then I went to the lavatory. In the lavatory I had some time to think. When I came back to my colleague’s cube, I asked him whether the person was a non-native English speaker. My colleague said “No”. Well, there went that theory. My colleague wondered whether this person might be joking around. I hadn’t thought of that.
So I told my colleague that it is so hard to know, with email, what a person’s intent is. He agreed. I said, “Maybe this person just has no social skills.” We agreed that this was the answer. The person had no social skills. Then, on the way out the door, my non-native English-speaking colleague asked if that meant the person was a sociopath.
That made my day.
“I see that count is initialized from thin air.”
He didn’t include any other information. My colleague had replied with the missing line of code, not explaining that it was a copy/paste error. The person’s next response was:
“So, D---, are you misquoting me?”
My colleague wanted to know what this person meant by “misquoting”. He knew the definition of the word, but he didn’t think it fit the context. I told my colleague that the message sounded snarky.
“Snarky, what is that?”, my colleague asked. Uh, oh, I thought. How do I explain ‘snarky’? I knew what it meant, but wasn’t sure how to define it. “Kind of sarcastic”, I explained. Then I said, “It sounds kind of like this person is making fun of you.” Finally, I concluded, “It sounds like this person is being an a—hole”. I was in a bad mood at the time.
My colleague wanted to know whether he should reply. I asked him whether he needed any further information from this person. He shook his head. I replied, “Then take the high ground. Don’t reply. Just delete it.”
Then I went to the lavatory. In the lavatory I had some time to think. When I came back to my colleague’s cube, I asked him whether the person was a non-native English speaker. My colleague said “No”. Well, there went that theory. My colleague wondered whether this person might be joking around. I hadn’t thought of that.
So I told my colleague that it is so hard to know, with email, what a person’s intent is. He agreed. I said, “Maybe this person just has no social skills.” We agreed that this was the answer. The person had no social skills. Then, on the way out the door, my non-native English-speaking colleague asked if that meant the person was a sociopath.
That made my day.
Comments:
intrepideddie (March 25, 2008. 11:35pm)
No social skills = sociopath. I love it. May have to use it at work (it is disturbingly accurate).
Bazookah 5 (March 26, 2008. 02:15pm)
Hm. I think it's worth thinking about this ! :)