Corporate E-Mail

E-Mail has revolutionized the work environment. From scheduling meetings, sharing files, and regular communication E-Mail facilitates every aspect of work. And, while E-Mail can help streamline business decisions it also comes with the worst design idea ever: the reply all button.
I've never been a huge fan of that little button that looks so inviting. It seems like a great idea: allow e-mail to facilitate a discussion among multiple people by keeping everyone on the same page. This is a great and powerful tool. Like anything powerful, it's just waiting to be misused. And I'd call it the most frequently abused aspect of e-mail communication.
My first exposure to this abuse came from being on several listserves in college. It wasn't uncommon for people to hold private discussions via an entire listserve thanks to that dreadful little button. They, of course, wouldn't figure out the error of their ways until I knew far too much about their weekend plans or relationships.
However, the abuse isn't limited to college students. This week at work I was bombarded with my first corporate cluster-fudge E-Mail storm. I arrived at work and opened Outlook expecting nothing new. While BuCorp is an international company, I'm not typically subjected to the whims of the international facet of the operation. So, imagine my surprise when I had over 100 new messages... all with the same subject line. Not able to resist the urge, I had to read through them. Starting off innocently enough with an e-mail to the corporate policy office things quickly spun out of control. Interspersed with the typical "STOP HITTING REPLY ALL" and "OMG, why am I getting this e-mail?!?!" were a few winners. Personally, I really liked a reply from a sales rep that invited users to e-mail another sales rep to be removed from the e-mail chain. (Technical note: most people should have realized that there was no way this person could remove someone from the list.) About 45 minutes after that e-mail the sender sent out another informing everyone that his prior e-mail was joke. My hypothesis is that the subject of the joke suddenly became inundated with E-Mails asking to be removed from a list he had no knowledge of. I got a real kick out of this and thought the exchange was hilarious. Since the E-Mail administrators work in my area, I took a walk over to get their fix on the situation. They were irate. There were 8,000 employees on the distribution list accidentally included in the list. Most of the 8,000 employees work in BuCorp headquarters, and included in the list was the company CEO. After a rather strong e-mail about "reply all" E-Mails from the E-Mail administration group, the fun for the day ended and it was back to work for everyone. It was a great start to the day.

Information Sharing

The thing about work which continues to constantly impress me is middle management. I went to work for BuCorp not really knowing what to expect. Prior to this job, my largest employer was Residential Life at Loyola. That wasn’t a real job and even then, there were fewer than 100 employees. BuCorp employs over 34,000 people around the globe. After having seen all the TV shows with office settings I was a little apprehensive about getting into such a large organization.
My first example of this came about when I met with the director of my branch’s HR department. I had been at work less than a month and was given a project which required I meet with various levels of management. I didn’t know what to expect going into that first meeting but was pleasantly surprised by how friendly and knowledgeable he was. His willingness to talk to me exceeded that which was required for my project and he came across as genuinely excited to have me on board with the company and excited to work with me. The conversation extended well beyond my project and he provided me lots of stories about his time with the company.
Another interaction I recently had is even more remarkable to me. I recently had the opportunity to travel to another office location to meet with one of my team’s remote employees. While there, my supervisor arranged for me to take a tour of another division that was located nearby. The other division wasn’t reportable in any way to my team yet they were very willing to show me around. I showed up expecting to be given a nickel tour by whoever was free. I was shocked when I was introduced to an assistant director of the division for an introduction to the division. He welcomed me into his office and we spent about an hour talking about the division and his time in BuCorp. It was a great opportunity for me to pick his brain for all sorts of information. He told me all about his career and offered plenty of relevant advice for navigating the BuCorp system. He also led me on a tour of his whole division and carefully explained everything they did. The tour was amazing and I could tell that he had a great handle on the divisions operations, challenges and opportunities. He is the type of person that people want to work for: on top of his game and with a strategy to win.
These interactions have reassured me that I made a good choice in working fro BuCorp. While it’s not a flawless company, the right people are on the bus to make the company great. These people, recognizing that they are only 5 or 10 years from retirement, seem genuinely excited to share their knowledge with the newcomers so we can carry the torch as high as they do after they leave. They each have a passion with what they do and are capable of explaining what they do in an articulate manner that makes you want to get involved. I’m amazed that management is willing to take time out of their schedules to talk to someone not reportable to them and who is so low on the totem pole. Rather than working in a basement for a major company, work feels much more like an extended family reunion.