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News & ArtsMonday, January 18, 2010
City / Chow / Teh Internets Arouse Your Senses, Clog Your Inbox; or, the Crush Crush
Posted by David Schmader on Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 11:09 AM
Crush is chef Jason Wilson's Madison Valley restaurant, situated in a slyly renovated early 20th-century house and totally beloved.
Next month, Crush will be celebrating its five year anniversary, with a special dinner-with-wine-pairings ($255 per person) on Tuesday, February 23. I learned about this dinner via the several hundred emails clogging my inbox since this morning.
First came the official invite sent by the Crush PR person. Then came the dozens upon dozens upon dozens of emails asking to be removed from the Crush mailing list, sent to the full Crush mailing list, leading to another avalanche of email about how to hit "reply" instead of "reply all," leading to another avalanche of email about "all you goddamn jerks who don't know how to use email" and on and on and on. A small sampling:
PLEASE STOP! MY IN BOX IS FILLED TO CAPACITY!!! THIS DOES NOT BODE WELL FOR ANY MARKETING EFFORTS YOU ARE TRYING FOR AND JUST MAKES FOLKS ANGRY!
You guys are all idiots. Learn to read. Replying all and saying remove will only send out more emails and not alert crush that you want removed. Idiots....
Dear braindead Crush community, You are spamming YOURSELVES, If you would like to reach Crush, please email ONLY CRUSH. I'm tired of receiving your idiot emails!!!
Eventually someone thinks of cashing in on the chaos....
I have spent the better part of my morning deleting all the hundreds of emails from people asking to be deleted from your list. I would suggest something for everyone's trouble, although I doubt they will open the email or return to the restaurant after this......
...and soon enough it gets personal:
REMOVE ME, like you people are holier than thou? I'll bet that your inbox is just brimming with so many personal emails that you can't be bothered. And your business is booming with so many corporate messages that your secretary can't handle the overload... lmao
And of course, someone had to do it:
Just hit delete folks if you dont want to read new from crush! Jason & Nicole are great people folks!, please excuse the mail in your inbox. It happens, worse things could happen to you, like being in Hatti right now!
The fun continues, but this blog post must end. A closing thought from someone trapped in the battle:
Reading these irate emails is the most fun I've had in days—If you think this is bad, you should see what happends when you do a ReplyAll with carrier pigeons.
2
This happens on our corporate email system from time to time. I help manage one list with hundred of members. Last week, someone included the list in an email thread that really wasn't too relevant.
Result? Sturm und drang of the variety that would put the grandest of grand opera to shame. And everyone insisted on hitting "Reply to All" for every plea not to use "Reply to All" and for every request to be removed from the thread and/or list.
Outlook and Exchange really need better management tools to contain this (yes, I know they exist but they're clunky). There's really no hope for emails outside of corporate systems; the standards there are too old and too embedded in too many different systems to be updated.
Result? Sturm und drang of the variety that would put the grandest of grand opera to shame. And everyone insisted on hitting "Reply to All" for every plea not to use "Reply to All" and for every request to be removed from the thread and/or list.
Outlook and Exchange really need better management tools to contain this (yes, I know they exist but they're clunky). There's really no hope for emails outside of corporate systems; the standards there are too old and too embedded in too many different systems to be updated.
3
Thank you David. I've been laughing all morning at the clueless replies that just keep comin'. You'd think that in a city as tech-savvy as Seattle professes to be that people would have a basic understanding of how email lists work! (that applies to both Crush for including a listserv name in the CC: field, as well as all the morons who haven't learned the risks associated with "Reply All").
The irony is that nobody's email address or "privacy" was exposed until they Replied All. There's a lot of fun that could be had with all the personal information in people's auto-signatures!
The irony is that nobody's email address or "privacy" was exposed until they Replied All. There's a lot of fun that could be had with all the personal information in people's auto-signatures!
4
#1: What would you expect from a business whose signature is serving thoroughly tortured animals? (Foie gras.)
7
Was this from an open listserve or was it just a shitload of recipients in the TO: field? Sounds like this whole thing could have been avoided if the bozos at Crush had enough sense to use BCC.
8
BTW, what the hell is the legitimate use of REPLY ALL anyways? And why is it on the toolbar rather than buried under a menu or something?
11
Next month, Crush will be celebrating its five year anniversary, with a special dinner-with-wine-pairings ($255 per person) on Tuesday, February 23.
I think it would be even more special if it was $455 per person.
I think it would be even more special if it was $455 per person.
13
My favorite emails are the ones asking for free tickets in exchange for press and free wine. We all saw that!
And it wasn't a Reply All problem, people responded to the listemail and that sent out the responses again to the list. Feel sorry for them, but it's a good lesson in how easy it is to make people feel vioated through email. Like, wow. Too easy.
And it wasn't a Reply All problem, people responded to the listemail and that sent out the responses again to the list. Feel sorry for them, but it's a good lesson in how easy it is to make people feel vioated through email. Like, wow. Too easy.
14
@7 "BTW, what the hell is the legitimate use of REPLY ALL anyways?"
I use it every day with business emails. If someone writes to me and 5 other people about a business deal, and also copies those 5 other people's admins, and their own admin, it makes my life a lot easier to use "reply all" rather than put all those people in. Or even if they only write to me but cc three of their associates. If they're including other people in their message to me, it's generally because they want those people kept in the loop. I've always just considered it business etiquette to ensure those people are witness to the other half of the exchange, as well. Unless there is a particular reason I want to only respond to the writer.
If they did put all these people in the 'to' field, it was a terrible move. Firstly, because they allowed this to happen, and secondly because if every recipient can see everyone else's email address, it's kind of a violation of privacy. Thirdly, it would be a security threat (in the sense that a user could have a virus that picks up on addresses in emails).
I use it every day with business emails. If someone writes to me and 5 other people about a business deal, and also copies those 5 other people's admins, and their own admin, it makes my life a lot easier to use "reply all" rather than put all those people in. Or even if they only write to me but cc three of their associates. If they're including other people in their message to me, it's generally because they want those people kept in the loop. I've always just considered it business etiquette to ensure those people are witness to the other half of the exchange, as well. Unless there is a particular reason I want to only respond to the writer.
If they did put all these people in the 'to' field, it was a terrible move. Firstly, because they allowed this to happen, and secondly because if every recipient can see everyone else's email address, it's kind of a violation of privacy. Thirdly, it would be a security threat (in the sense that a user could have a virus that picks up on addresses in emails).
15
@13 Agreed. The most entertaining part of my morning was reading an obvious shot at pay-for-play by a food writer. Yikes.
16
@13 - "it wasn't a Reply All problem, people responded to the listemail and that sent out the responses again to the list."
Well, at least it wasn't a 'to' field blunder.
Well, at least it wasn't a 'to' field blunder.
17
@16, that is a "to" field blunder. You should never put your mailing list alias in the "to" field--it goes in bcc. Put your own address in the "to" field. Then nobody can reply all to your entire mailing list and make everybody want to be on it.
Better still, use Constant Contact or one of its competitors. Regular email is terrible for managing large mailing lists.
Better still, use Constant Contact or one of its competitors. Regular email is terrible for managing large mailing lists.
19
Hahaha. I got in the middle of one of these roundabout reply-all messes about a month ago. It was kind of like a perpetual motion machine. It went on for several days before it finally died out.
21
> paying $255 for a very special 1 night dinner in these times seems pretty callous.
Why? Assuming you've already donated to haiti, and you still have the $255 of disposable income wouldn't it be more callous to keep it to yourself than to spread it around to local businesses and their employees?
Why? Assuming you've already donated to haiti, and you still have the $255 of disposable income wouldn't it be more callous to keep it to yourself than to spread it around to local businesses and their employees?
22
People, CLOG is what we call Constant's Book Blog. And it is copyrighted. Using it in your headline only creates confusion.
23
@ 21 Not when you have a family and bills to pay. Sorry overpriced local business and idiot owners, its a no-can-do situation for $255.
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