The Setting: I just received another one of those hoax e-mails. In related news, I'm really starting to enjoy looking up stories on Snopes.comThe latest e-mail a friend sent me is this story about a girl who had been badly burned in a fire at a Wal-Mart. At the end of the sad story, the reader is told to forward the e-mail because every time you do, Yahoo will donate $2 to the family's hospital bill. Depending on who started the e-mail chain, you can replace Yahoo with AOL, MySpace, whatever. It's not true in any case.
About three weeks ago, I received an e-mail about how dialing #77 on your cell phone gives you direct access to a dispatcher who can verify state trooper information. That way, you don't have to take the chance that the cop who's attempting to get you to pull your car over is really an ax murderer who's ready to take a swing at you. According to Snopes, there are actually some states in which dialing #77 on your cell phone will immediately connect you with that state's highway patrol, but it doesn't work in most states.
The Setting: Finally, a little bit of help for those of us who wish we could take it back.
Way back in October 2008 I wrote about the awkward situation of sending an e-mail to the wrong person or saying something stupid in your e-mail that you wish you could take back.Google's e-mail has introduced an email tool that allows you to undo an embarrassing e-mail you sent by mistake. The catches are it only works with Gmail accounts and you only have five seconds to undo the send. Here is the article about the undo send tool.
The Setting: You have just sent an e-mail to a friend or co-worker of yours, saying something negative about someone else. Only after clicking Send do you realize that you actually also sent the e-mail to the person you were bad-mouthing.
I can’t recall ever doing this myself, but I have had several experiences where I sent an e-mail to someone and included some unflattering things about someone else, and then the person I originally sent it to responded and copied several other people on the e-mail (bastard!). This typically happens when there's a long e-mail string and people aren't thinking about what may be included in one of the earlier e-mails.
Basically, I’ve learned to not include anything in an e-mail that I wouldn’t mind someone else seeing because I know I have zero control over what happens to that e-mail after I send it. But I am an idiot, after all, so I am sure I will continue saying things I later wish I could take back. Just refer to any of my previous blog postings for examples…
Here is the article I read today on this topic. The comments at the end of other people’s embarrassing examples are hilarious. I would love to hear your embarrassing stories, too.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/worklife/10/20/lw.recovering.email.mistakes/index.html
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