I almost never write about work, because duh, I’m not stupid. But I think an email thread that recently went down can be presented in general enough terms. I summarize it briefly here:
team member #1: “I’m having problems with Big Complicated System! Wah! Jenny, please figure out what’s wrong, over email, with minimal details!”
team members 2-6: “Wah! Me too! Wah!”
Jenny: “Well, I’m no expert, but this has worked for me in the past. You need to blah blah blah.”
team member #1: “Oh, no! You don’t know what you’re talking about! That can’t be right.”
annoying, know-it-all, totally not involved team member #7: “He’s right. Let’s ask BigWigConnectionofJenny’s for help.”
Jenny: “Can we please try my solution before we go bugging BigWigConnectionofJenny’s?”
team member #3: “Good idea! I just forwarded him this thread.”
Jenny: (outside of email thread: Fuck!)
team member #1: “Jenny is dumb. That can’t be the way to do it.”
team members 2-6: “Yeah! She’s dumb! Wah! Wah!”
BigWigConnectionofJenny’s: “Jenny’s information in this thread is spot on. Unfortunately, we don’t have a debugger for Big Complicated System and can’t troubleshoot these issues very well. I recommend first trying the steps in the ‘Troubleshooting Tips’ located at….”
Ha ha, suckers! I confess to dorkily thrusting my fist in the air when my BigWigConnection weighed in. Jeez! People are so lame. Don’t you hate it when someone asks you for help and then insists your help is wrong?
That’s hilarious. You tell ‘em!
I hate that! Booyahkasha!
Yes, yes and, um, hell yes.
Erik: Yeah! Suck it, work meanies! You won’t have to deal with any of those much longer!
serror: Hi there! I confess to forwarding this thread to another colleague with the subject line : BOOYAH.
chickadee: **highfives**
You go girl!