the duplicity of reply all

Reply All is a handy device to have at work when trying to coordinate a team effort. You can quickly disseminate a message to scores of people. It's good stuff. It's equally useful with friends when trying to nail down a time and place to hang out after work, on the weekend, what have you. I applaud the efficient use of this feature. ::clap, clap, clap, clap::

Reply All is the bane of my existence when the sender eschews the Bcc: function and sends out a mass e-mail announcing a new address, a milestone, a chain letter or some other tiresome forward, etc. Somewhere within that visible distribution list, you always have that one person who feels the need to write back to the entire group. Sometimes they are reacting to a joke and will simply reply with a "ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" or they'll try to one-up the joke in the email with their own brand of humor. Something tells me that this is the same person who yells shit at the screen in a movie theater. Shut up, Shecky. No one wants to hear from you.

Then you have the other people who write back and reference something that only he/she and the sender will possibly understand. Are you trying to prove that you and the sender are like this? Are the rest of us supposed to feel inadequate because we don't get the inside joke? I know what you're up to. You're intimidated by the amount of names in the To: list and you're trying to mark your territory. To that I say, don't piss on my in-box. Go work out your insecurity elsewhere and stop gobbling up my precious MBs.

Perhaps I'm just a cranky bitch but it's a real letdown when I hear the "woo woo" new mail sound that Outlook makes and it turns out to be one of these stupid replies. I hate when my stomach goes from the excited flip to that pissed-off crash. If you're guilty of the itchy Reply All trigger finger, I think I speak for most when I say, cut that shit out! Thank you for your time.