BLOG by zaiss

I rely on my friend Lisa to help me in my transition to the “real world” after spending so much of my life in school. One of the things she was picky about was not emailing from my work email. “Work email is work property. You never know who’s going to be reading it, or what it could be used for, so just don’t put personal stuff there.”

I thought it was good advice. So imagine my surprise when I opened an email from another Microsoft employee (sent to a distribution list at the company) that said, simply, this:

One of the perks about working at Microsoft is that there are lots of distribution lists for you to join, including five (I think) for new employees in various capacities… one for recent grads, one for answers to tough questions, and one for just general discussion. The above zinger was sent to the last one in response to a lengthy thread about “Hey, cops are on 520.” “Man, cops shouldn’t give speeding tickets.” “Yeah, it just slows traffic unnecessarily.” “This is a stupid thread because people have solid opinions on both sides of the argument.” And on and on.

Microsoft is great about trying to separate out d-lists that tend to devolve into random quibbles (politely called “discussions”) from those that merely serve to inform without any discussion, and it’s generally acknowledged that being on the “general discussion for new employees” list is asking for trouble (you get about 100 emails a day). But hey. One of these days there might be something useful, right?

I don’t mean to be down on the discussion d-lists, at Microsoft or anywhere else, or even the author of the above statement (purposefully unidentified), but I think Lisa’s original point still stands. Even if the discussion devolves from work topics, no big deal, but I’d hate to have to explain why I referred to myself as a drunken criminal on a 140 mph joyride if it got taken out of context…