Ranty rantness

[herveus]

In my inbox at work, I found a missive from the security officer for the program I work on. This missive was meant to be a warning about unsafe usage of MySpace. It linked to an article about the accused killer of an 18-year old in the midwest and specifically noted his MySpace page. The missive also forwarded a note from a coworker that was http://www.snopes.com/horrors/parental/shannon.asp or at least a slightly trimmed version of that. The forwarded message was labeled "MySpace: A must read for all". It read suspiciously all the way through. At the end, when the "stalker" is revealed to be a local police officer "doing a good deed", God is invoked as the saving mechanism.

It's bad enough when people use company email to spam everyone with made up stuff like this, but the offense is compounded when it turns in to a religious tract. The original was written by two Christians as a cautionary tale, and was apparently clearly labeled as such and included a eight-point list of Things To Do Or Not Do to avoid the near fate of Shannon. The list had no religious content and would have been worthy of forwarding by the company security officer as an extension of this person's legitimate duties to pass along warnings. Unfortunately, the list and the foreword that marked the tale as Not A Factual Account disappeared early in the internet life of the tale.

I'm Christian, and I was offended by the imposition. I've written to the offender and (I hope) clearly and professionally pointed this out. I'd really hate to be moved to register a complaint with the appropriate ethics officer.

I really love it when people spam this crap in the workplace. I've seen worse, such as the time a "helpful safety hint" was published in the corporate rag. A simple critical reading of the proposed scheme for getting carjacked in a mall parking lot would have made you go "huh?" Thirty seconds at Snopes would have found confirmation that the story was Made Up Stuff. None of this happened, so the credibility of any helpful hints in that publication is zero.

*sigh*

Comments

[martelvonc.livejournal.com]

I hear you!

We have folks who are trying to be "helpful" at work all the time. Then when you let them know they passed on a non-exsist problem or false story they say "Well, it never hurts to be aware". Well, yes it does! Scaring people with false stories is not helpful.

We even had an urban legend posted by a company vice-president as a helpful hint. Sheesh.

Come on people, I immediately suspect a story like that the MINUTE there are no real facts covering the five "W's". Who what when where why.

Next!

[isenglass.livejournal.com]

Sorry to delete the last comment. LJ won't let me edit.

People at my office have been fired for forwarding emails like that. Misuse of company email is considered stealing from the company.

[martelvonc.livejournal.com]

Heck, don't fire em'.
I think public ridicule and a minor flogging as an example to others, is much more satisfying.....

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

It surprises me at how many things people forward through e-mail without even thinking.

My hard and fast rule is not to forward anything, not jokes, not warnings, not chain mail, nothing.

People want to feel like they are doing something (forwarding warnings) without actually having to DO anything.

Good luck and I hope assorted people cut it out.

[ulfrslady.livejournal.com]

I'm with you; I will forward a joke to a specific person I think will "get" it but that's about it.

I am constantly sending my grandmother Snopes links.

[shalandara.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too. Although in my case it is my mother. I think after several years, she's finally figured out not to forward stuff to me. One of the things I do not miss about working at the library is all of the e-mails that would get forwarded to me all the time, since I was theoretically in charge of the library system.

[weatherman2111.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

Yay for me being on the federal system where we just don't get junk like that. We do get some odd email templates though.

[baron-rorik.livejournal.com]

Government doesn't save you from internal e-mail that people gather from their personal emails. Like Herveus, I've gotten religious stuff while working for USDA and have sent back the 'do not e-mail me with this type of material or the ethics people WILL hear about it' response... and then gotten a hurt sounding phone call. ACCCCK!

[dameroksanne.livejournal.com]

My company also put a moratorium on the forwarding of this non sense.

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

I generally do a "Reply to All" with the appropriate Snopes link. That way, they get held up to the appropriate amount of public mockery.

[montuos]

That's how I cured my supervisor. After a couple of years, she finally got the clue, came and asked me how I found the links, and then started looking at Snopes first herself!

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

That's my preferred modus operandi too.

[goddessgoddess.livejournal.com]

I'm sure someone was just trying to help. The story doesn't even read like a real one, it sounds like a story.

[herveus.livejournal.com]

In my reply, I asked the sender to recall the message. She did that and sent me an apology. The offense has been corrected to the extent that it can be, and there is a sign that learning occurred. Yay!

The story was written as a, well, story.