Email Idiocy
The newhire and member of The Rebellion is a deaf girl named LeeAnn. It was actually she and her job placement specialist (came and helped her settle in) that convinced Rosa to join me out there for her last week with the company.
In any case, LeeAnn set out a company-wide email informing us that this building used to be the Mocum School for the Deaf and Blind before they closed it down and that she always wanted to go to that school and was glad to be working in the same building.
In a flash of brilliance (and amnesia, he forgot that she was deaf), my coworker Geoff decided to send a company-wide response to the effect of: "But if you're deaf and blind, it probably doesn't matter where you work!"
Mindy, the office manager living in fear of having to replace another member of the McDepartment, went into a panic. She contacted the IT guy and got the message deleted before LeeAnn got back to her computer.
Meanwhile, nearly every department sent an emissary to Geoff's desk to let him know that she was deaf and his comment could have come off very offensively. He went from shrugging it off to being worried to being quite annoyed (by the sixth or seventh person to approach him).
I guess you had to be there, but my coworkers and I were laughing our heads off. Not at LeeAnn, to be sure, but at Geoff, his dumb sense of humor, and the mess he found himself in.
Then another coworker - equally unaware of LeeAnn's impairment - sent another company-wide email making fun of another coworker by equating his mature age with senility (and senility with deafness).
And everything flew into a frenzy again.
By the time this was all finished, the lawyers crafted an Official Response, our entire email system was shut down to prevent further catastrophe.
LeeAnn, meanwhile, did in fact get both emails on her PDA. She shrugged it off, saying that she was used to it.
That's good for Geoff, good for the Legal Department... but not really a good thing.
In any case, LeeAnn set out a company-wide email informing us that this building used to be the Mocum School for the Deaf and Blind before they closed it down and that she always wanted to go to that school and was glad to be working in the same building.
In a flash of brilliance (and amnesia, he forgot that she was deaf), my coworker Geoff decided to send a company-wide response to the effect of: "But if you're deaf and blind, it probably doesn't matter where you work!"
Mindy, the office manager living in fear of having to replace another member of the McDepartment, went into a panic. She contacted the IT guy and got the message deleted before LeeAnn got back to her computer.
Meanwhile, nearly every department sent an emissary to Geoff's desk to let him know that she was deaf and his comment could have come off very offensively. He went from shrugging it off to being worried to being quite annoyed (by the sixth or seventh person to approach him).
I guess you had to be there, but my coworkers and I were laughing our heads off. Not at LeeAnn, to be sure, but at Geoff, his dumb sense of humor, and the mess he found himself in.
Then another coworker - equally unaware of LeeAnn's impairment - sent another company-wide email making fun of another coworker by equating his mature age with senility (and senility with deafness).
And everything flew into a frenzy again.
By the time this was all finished, the lawyers crafted an Official Response, our entire email system was shut down to prevent further catastrophe.
LeeAnn, meanwhile, did in fact get both emails on her PDA. She shrugged it off, saying that she was used to it.
That's good for Geoff, good for the Legal Department... but not really a good thing.
posted by trumwill at 3:12 PM
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