Email WTF.....



  • Back in the days I was in college, I used to work PT for a neuroscience professor part time.  The job isn't a big deal... use a custom app to track animal brain waves, graph out the results, and submit them to the professor for his papers.  BTW, the professor was 84 years old.

    When they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, it's definitely true.  He has his own ways or organizing things, and it came to a head when it comes to email. 

    When he sends an outgoing email, he insists on BCC-ing himself a copy of it; apparently, clicking the "sent mail" box and looking at it is not an option; he wants everyone in the inbox.  Therefore, when the BCC-ed email comes back to him, it looks like this:

    From:  Neuroscience professor

    To: Neuroscience professor

    One day, he came to me, and asked whether he can make changes to the email, so that when the BCC-ed email comes back it will look like:

    From: The person to whom he sent the email to

    To: Neuroscience professor

    When I told him that doing such a thing is impossible, since that's not how email works, he comes back with "Well, you talk to whoever's responsible for email and change it then!  I don't understand why it's not built this way; that's what BCC is for!"

    So, I do my "support", which included calling our email client, university computer support, and having a good laugh with the tech support personnel when I brought up the problem.  Eventually, the professor would have something else to do and we would move on.  However, six to nine months later, he would bring up the topic again.....



  • @hookahmasta said:

    Therefore, when the BCC-ed email comes back to him, it looks like this:

    From:  Neuroscience professor
    To: Neuroscience professor

    That's weird.  When I use BCC to keep a copy in my inbox, it looks like this (pretending for the moment that I am a neuroscience professor):

    From: Neuroscience professor
    To: The person to whom I sent the E-mail

    If he's using a client that replaces the "To:" with himself, that client is broken.

    davidh 



  • I'm trying to understand how he did this before email.  (I assume he is trying to do with email something he used to do with regular mail.)

    I guess he used carbon paper to make a copy of the letter, then:

       -- put the carbon copy in an envelope, addressed it to himself and stamped it,

       -- wrote a note on the envelope saying "Please put your return address on this envelope and mail it",

       -- put the envelope and the original letter in a bigger envelope,

       -- addressed the bigger envelope to the recipient and stamped it,

       -- [TODO:  wooden table gag]

       -- mailed the envelope.

     



  • @hookahmasta said:

    I used to work PT for a neuroscience professor part time.


    Exactly how many hours is part-time of part-time ? ;-)



  • You know what.... you are right..... It's been so damn long since I did a BCC that I've forgotten how it works......!!!

     However, he still wants to go from:

     From: Neuroscience professor

    To: The person to whom he sent the email to

     To:

    From: The person to whom he sent the email to

    To: Neuroscience professor

    Thanks for the correction, and sorry for the confusion.....  A True WTF on my part!


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