I feel incredibly alienated at work. Really.
As for my job, I do IT support for a local business where I live in Michigan. I rarely leave my office anymore, even for lunch. I go to the kitchen, make my lunch, go back to my office. I do this while wearing my headphones the entire time.
This incident happened yesterday, Wednesday the 21st of October. Have any of you seen that Sony Ericsson chain letter including an image of a fake Sony Ericsson campaign that tells you to send this email to 20 people CCing the fake Sony address for a free laptop?
Snopes - Sony Ericsson Laptop Giveaway Hoax
Yeah, that one. Well, it was circulating at the office yesterday and was starting to spread like wildfire. There were many people that were sending it to at least 20 people, including non-employees, which is a big no-no already.
I didn't want people to continue spamming this JPEG (another no-no) for free laptops in this economy right before the holidays. Not only that, but what if someone got in trouble for sending this around? This would definitely fall under company email abuse. I felt it was my duty as the IT guy, I guess.
I figured I'd just send out an email with Sony's official statement straight from Snopes. I figured the worst that would happen would be a few people going, "Oh, well. I knew it was fake, but whatever, right? Just another chain letter."
I was wrong.
Moments after sending my reply, I had one employee call my extension and started complaining about how I sent it to everyone listed in the forward. That I did, yes. I sent it to everyone listed in the chain, not just the employees. She apparently thought I was trying to make her look silly to her friends, family, and coworkers.
She eventually hung up after a few kind words. I don't want to be stubborn, but I thought I was trying to help. It's a desperate time and those that could really use an awesome gift, such as a laptop, would send this to everyone they know.
Second response from another coworker, except this time, she actually came into my office. She tried to explain that I had no business telling everyone that this campaign was false and I should have let them go on with their bliss. That is almost verbatim.
About 30 minutes went by and I have this email sitting in my inbox...
Hey……………..you are being mean, I don’t think it hurts to try and get something for free. Did it cost anything to forward it? The answer to that should be ‘NO’ but you yelled at me!!!!!!!!!!! I was being a friend and thought MAYBE you could use one for a Xmas gift.
*Her Name,* the PRESIDENT and CO-FOUNDER of the he’s being mean club
Here is my email in full.
This is a hoax. Please do not spam this chain letter around.
Please go to http://www.snopes.com and check it for yourself. Sony Ericsson has made no such offer. This is a really old chain letter.
“Sony Ericsson has been made aware of an online email campaign claiming that Ericsson will give away a free laptop computer to users who forward the promotional information. The same campaign includes a photograph of the Sony Ericsson logo and mentions an Ericsson contact name and email number.
Sony Ericsson confirms that this email campaign is a hoax. In addition, Sony Ericsson confirms that the Ericsson contact name does not exist.
All competitions and promotions involving Sony Ericsson are run through official channels such as Sony Ericsson's website or Sony Ericsson's partners' websites. Please be wary of any competition or promotion that appears to come from outside of Sony Ericsson or Sony Ericsson's partners official channels. Examples of these include via spam emails or SMS.
Please do not reply to or forward the email if you receive it.”
I started having doubts about sending that email later, but the email was the last of the responses of the 30-40 people as of today. Maybe the people that appreciated the input remained silent?
Do you, dear reader, think I was wrong for sending that response?
October 23rd, 2009 - 10:33
What I’m going to say you already know but I’m saying it anyway. These people are computer and internet illiterate and you reminded them of that so they took it personally. They were momentarily excited by thinking they’d found some secret internet freebie that people would praise them for having shared. So it’s got nothing to do with what you said or how you said it, their egos were just hurt because they were publicly shown to have fallen for a trick.
You handled it the best way to ensure that people were informed, it’s their problem if they took it so personally. I guess since you work with such sensitive people, next time you could email just the employees and let them know they should warn anyone that also received it.
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October 23rd, 2009 - 13:12
There is absolutely nothing wrong with what you did, but anyone gullible enough to buy into this hoax without doing any amount of research is stupid, so don’t expect too much from these people when you remind them of that.
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October 23rd, 2009 - 16:01
Both of you, thank you for your words. Dougomite, welcome to my Google Reader.
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February 25th, 2010 - 17:39
I have learned it is best to just let people suffer. I tried sending out a helpful email once letting people know I was in the same boat as someone else and someone interpreted it as me voicing a personal opinion that was inappropriate. The entire content of my email was “Same situation here”. How someone could develop an opinion on such a short phrase is beyond me. I was merely referring to how the email server was sending me multiple copies of the same email because someone else had said the same thing. People always have a tendency to read into emails way too much and take everything personally.
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