Never BCC an Idiot.
'Blind Carbon Copy' (BCC) is the most politically charged firecracker ever dropped into a technological device. And email is the powder keg of the computing world. So I urge you, politely, but very definitely: Never, Ever, BCC an idiot.And you know that everythig I'm about to say is just hypthetical. Right? (continuing story: Never BCC an idiot)
So let's says, hypothetically, you send an email like this:
from: <help-desk-manager@company-abc.fictional>
To: <jack@customer.fictional>
bcc: "chief support" <fred@company-abc.fictional>
Dear Jack
We really appreciate the feedback you've provided to us about the error messages presented by our product.
It is feedback like yours that helps us move forward, so please do not hesitate to contact us again about any matter involving [product name], at any time of day or night.
After extensive consultation with your personal assistant, and your personal assistant's secretary, and after two site visits from our support personnel, we are now quite certain that the initial cause of your printing problem relates to the absence of paper from your printer.
Please be assured that we have taken every possible step to remedy this situation, and any future attempt to use our application to print to an empty printer will result in a far clearer message that will avoid any possible loss of the valuable time of one of our clients, such as yourself.
I sincerely apologise for any confusion or anger that the ambiguous message ('Please check your printer') may have caused. Due to your company's long standing custom of our product we will be more than happy to reimburse you for the time that was lost due to this confusing message.
Thank you once again for your feedback. Keep up the diligent work!
Kind regards
[name of help-desk-manager]
Reply, within a minute:
from: "chief support" <fred@company-abc.fictional>
to: <help-desk-manager@company-abc.fictional>, <jack@customer.fictional>
Just hope the dumb c*nt learnt a f*cken lesson.
I think that any email client worth its salt would warn the user before letting them hit reply-all on a message that includes BCC's.
This is a step or two beyond your average Jakobi Nielsen 'use-ability'. This is 'welcome-to-unemployment-for-you-and-your-boss-ability'
'chris' on Sat, 04 Mar 2006 11:30:10 GMT, sez: also if there is an obvious 'escalation' in the swear words being used then the email client might warn the user about just who this email is being sent to.
if your cousin bill sends you a dirty email and you email back with dirty words then that's fine.
but if your boss sends you an angry but not "profane" email, then maybe outlook (or whatever) could warn before you tell him to go f*** himself.
'Hermann Klinke' on Sat, 04 Mar 2006 12:19:03 GMT, sez: F*cking hilarious.
'Bill Gardner' on Sat, 04 Mar 2006 21:04:00 GMT, sez: I want to see a better email client actually spell-check the profanity(s).
Look at all those * no wonder why people are not clear on the f*cking message when we try to communicate
'<jack@customer.fictional>' on Sun, 05 Mar 2006 07:07:12 GMT, sez: I don't get it??
'Alan' on Tue, 07 Mar 2006 13:31:58 GMT, sez: What I don't understand is why the f*ck they didn't just send this to the entire company.
'http://' on Tue, 07 Mar 2006 17:45:48 GMT, sez: fucken h*larious
'paul' on Mon, 27 Mar 2006 15:41:44 GMT, sez: what i like about this is the advertisement on the left of this page:
Bcc Outlook
Quickly deliver personalized mass emails to your Outlook mailing list
www.EmailAddressManager.com
Ironic that i should be adding to their advertising by listing them here...
'Tobias' on Mon, 27 Mar 2006 16:12:28 GMT, sez: The very problem of your proposed solution is how Bcc works. Since it is a "blind" copy, the Bcc header does not appear anywhere in the mail, so the e-mail client must decuce from the fact that one is not listed in the To or CC header that it was a blind copy...
My mail client doesn't even know all the adresses I use, so deciding if I was adressed directly or via Bcc is a hard problem :)
'Eustace Scrubb' on Mon, 10 Apr 2006 23:13:12 GMT, sez: Right, what Tobias said. If email clients would implement some kind of "probably blind copy" warning - say a banner kind of like "oh, I've removed extra line breaks - and LOOK OUT DUMBASS YOU WERE BCC'd ON THIS MESSAGE" it would do wonders for everyone.
'lb' on Mon, 10 Apr 2006 23:16:22 GMT, sez: "LOOK OUT DUMBASS YOU WERE BCC'd ON THIS MESSAGE"
i like it ;-)
'Ponch' on Thu, 27 Apr 2006 11:09:23 GMT, sez: Note that the problem here has nothing to do with BCC but with the dumb chief hitting "Reply To All".
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