As I’ve written before, our receptionist Broomhilda is one of the most unpleasant people I’ve ever had to work with. Between the fact that she is ALWAYS right (even when glaringly wrong) and her loud, obnoxious voice that I get to hear in stereo every day, it’s enough to make a sane person dive off of the nearest cliff.
One of her more – ahem – endearing qualities is her e-mailing ability. It is horrible. Between murdering the English language, the ungodly font size, and rainbow of color, it has gotten to the point where almost no one will even open her e-mails anymore. A typical example is the following e-mail we received on Monday:
Attention please:
I have received a call from Fed x that they are delivering a shipment to the office tomorrow 6/6/06 . It is 11 pieces. and it is from Quiorum International in Ft. Worth , TX. It is assigned to XYZ project in Mayberry. I do not know who this shipment belongs to . Whoever knows anything about this please call Broomhilda Receptionist asap.
Thank you
Or another one we received two weeks ago…
To All
I have several sets of plans at the front desk for pick up and all are marked as to who they go to. However picks them up after 12:30 today fri. please take the yellow sticky and initial it and stick it to my desk so I know who took them.
I mean, holy crap. Holy. Crap. Or as she would put it, in red 36-point font, HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!
This week it has been the Employee Extension List. What started out as a simple Excel spreadsheet of four columns has morphed into the biggest mess of punctuation, spelling, and formatting errors ever to exist on the planet.
Tuesday, 4:25 PM: We receive an e-mail with a phone extension list attached, stating “This phone extension list reflects new employees.” I print it out, only to notice that it is dated October 2005 and that two of the employees' names are written like this: First Name , Last Name. As in John, Doe.
Wednesday, 8:13 AM: We receive another mail, with another list attached and written in 24-point purple font, “OOOPS I FORGOT TO CHANGE THE DATE !!!!!!!! SO SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” The names are still incorrect.
Wednesday, 10:44 AM: Yet another e-mail, with another list attached and the following:
“I am sorry to have to send this again but there has been a change in the phone extension for John Doe. His new number is 555-1212.” Then further down, she decides in the e-mail to list the phone extensions for all of the summer interns. I guess at this point we’re lucky to have a list anywhere let alone a complete list…and sweet irony, the two names are still incorrect.
Wednesday, 3:29 PM: Another e-mail – this time only to the project assistants – “I thought you all would like a corrected phone ext. list” with yet another copy of the list attached. Both names are still incorrect, and nothing is different from the previous two lists.
Seriously, I am about ready to strangle the woman with her mouse cord. I ended up e-mailing her boss (and yes, I intentionally sent it in all caps as I was at the end of my rope):
"PLEASE....MAKE IT STOP....AND HOW MANY MORE TIMES IS SHE GOING TO SEND OUT A LIST WITH TYPOS AND SPELLING MISTAKES AND VARYING FONTS???? OBVIOUSLY ALL OF THE PUNCTUATION SHE LEAVES OUT OF HER E-MAILS ARE IN THE PHONE LIST.
I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH MORE OF THIS I CAN TAKE....!!!!!!!!!"
Oddly enough, I haven't received a response. She is probably too busy weeding through all of Broomhilda's e-mails to have even found my e-mail yet. Anyone want to take bets on how many copies of the extension list we get tomorrow? I'm getting a pool together, $5 a square.
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