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In the latest embarrassing e-mail chain to leak out of the corporate world, it seems a team of London accountants spent more than four hours debating what to do about a fly buzzing around their office.
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What's the big deal? It's not like they were all sitting, together, in one room, talking about this for 4 hours straight.
Posts: 63 | From: USA | Registered: Nov 2004
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Look It Up
The Red and the Green Stamps
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quote:Originally posted by sugar cooky: What's the big deal? It's not like they were all sitting, together, in one room, talking about this for 4 hours straight.
That's a good point. Though I think the problem was that E-mail was used to discuss a simple, easily solved problem such as a fly on the wall. Ms Lucy could have swatted the fly herself and gotten back to work. Or she could have asked someone nearby for help. But instead she fired off an E-mail. In doing so she created the proverbial mountian from a molehill.
It's an amusing story nonetheless. And it's indicative of our increasing dependence on computer based communication. When I first started working -- at a software company -- we didn't have E-mail. We used the telephone, fax machine and paper memos. That was only 16 years ago but it seems ridiculously primitive today.
I can't remember the last time my office phone rang. But my inbox is always full
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Knowing how every office I've been in works, and that the fly was there since 'last thursday', and there is more than one person in the department:
quote:"We have a fly in our department and it has been here since last Thursday. I was wondering if you have anything that can get rid of him."
Anyone care to guess how many hours were wasted talking about the fly and/or trying to kill the fly before someone bothered to send the email?
-------------------- "England and America are two countries divided by a common language." - George Bernard Shaw Posts: 555 | From: Ireland | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by sugar cooky: What's the big deal? It's not like they were all sitting, together, in one room, talking about this for 4 hours straight.
That's a good point. Though I think the problem was that E-mail was used to discuss a simple, easily solved problem such as a fly on the wall.
Do you think the subject of such a discussion would dearly wish to know what was being said? If so, what would it say? (If it could say anything, of course.)
Arts "on a different wall" Myth
-------------------- Stupid, stupid rat creatures! - Bone "The missionaries told us not to cut ourselves. It displeases Jesus." - Elsie Clews Parsons, Kiowa Tales, quoted in The Mourner's Dance, Katherine Ashenburg Posts: 695 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Sep 2002
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Ouch My Ankle
The Red and the Green Stamps
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quote:Originally posted by Arts Myth: Do you think the subject of such a discussion would dearly wish to know what was being said? If so, what would it say? (If it could say anything, of course.)
It would probably say, "Help meeeee.... Help meeeee..."
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quote:Originally posted by Arts Myth: Do you think the subject of such a discussion would dearly wish to know what was being said? If so, what would it say? (If it could say anything, of course.)
It would probably say, "Help meeeee.... Help meeeee..."
He's probably armless though
Posts: 1157 | From: Westcountry UK "It's Bootiful" | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ouch My Ankle: It would probably say, "Help meeeee.... Help meeeee..."
Thank you for making me spray my desk with coffee!
Since I am pretty new I am mostly trying to catch up with the threads, so bear with me if I write in some older ones.
I read the article, but it never says that they were writing mails to each other constantly, there seems to be some time between them. The first mail is from 11:32am, the answer from Susan is from 2:14pm. No word on how many mails were exchanged.
Sounds more like the typical fun between colleauges during a boring day of work. We do it at my workplace from time to time as well and I am sharing my office with the colleauge, sitting face to face, no more than 2 meters apart
Gavida
-------------------- "He looked bigger when I couldn't see him" - Jayne Cobb Posts: 359 | From: Essen, NRW, Germany | Registered: Jul 2005
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Ouch My Ankle
The Red and the Green Stamps
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quote:Originally posted by Gavida: Thank you for making me spray my desk with coffee! [snip...]
You're quite welcome. And welcome to the boards.
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One fly? And this was a work problem because?
The worst that can happen from one fly is you shoo it away when it lands on your arm. Why does anybody even need to discuss it? Flies are just a natural phenomenon, and I have yet to see any building which is uniformly and completely fly-free, even hospitals.
These guys might have a work shutdown if they were working at my job. We have flourescents everywhere, and a giant mayfly problem outside. By the end of the evening, the place looks like a mayfly hatchery. If one lousy fly is enough to get their attention and require other staff to intervene... whew, what a bunch of whiners!
quote:Originally posted by Look It Up: QUOTE] It's an amusing story nonetheless. And it's indicative of our increasing dependence on computer based communication. When I first started working -- at a software company -- we didn't have E-mail. We used the telephone, fax machine and paper memos. That was only 16 years ago but it seems ridiculously primitive today.
I can't remember the last time my office phone rang. But my inbox is always full
Personally, I find interoffice email to be, for lack of a better term, more polite than phone calls. I know that whenever I get a call from a fellow employee, I'm always in the middle of something, and I have to drop everything, and either give them an answer right away, or at least promise to look into it. However, email gives the person a chance to get to it without interfering with what they're working on at that exact moment. That's how I see it, anyway. But then again, I hate talking on the phone.
Posts: 253 | From: Colorado | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Originally posted by snopes: In the latest embarrassing e-mail chain to leak out of the corporate world, it seems a team of London accountants spent more than four hours debating what to do about a fly buzzing around their office.
All in all, we're just another fly on the wall.
Posts: 1651 | From: Columbus, Ohio | Registered: Aug 2004
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