Email Increases Efficiency

I really, really do not understand people who do not check who their email is being sent to. Case in point: I am on a distribution list for a project I do not work on anymore. I get a few emails per day. Today, someone replied asking to be removed from the list. Then another. And another. And another. Obviously the list has not been cleaned up in quite some time. All of these emails are being sent to the entire list, because when you click “reply,” the reply-to address has been configured (in some misguided attempt at communication, I’m sure) such that the list address appears in the “To” field. To reply to a single person, you must remove the list address and then type in the address of the person you wish to email.

Now, this is horribly designed. It makes it far too easy for lazy people who do not check the “To” field of their email before hitting “Send” to accidentally reply to the whole list. So today, this is what I’ve gotten to read:

“Please remove me from this list.”
“Ok, I will remove you when I get back to my office.”
“Please remove me as well.”
“And me.”
“Yes, remove me.”
“Stop replying to all!”
“Remove me from the list also.”
“PLEASE STOP REPLYING TO ALL!”
“Take me off the list.”
“I don’t want to be on the list anymore.”
“Remove me please.”
“To be removed, you must email so-and-so. Stop replying to the whole list.”
“Remove me from the list please.”

And on. And on. AND ON.

At least there was this response to make me laugh:

“I like being on this list. I’ve never gotten so many great emails! Are there any more lists like this you can put me on?”

For a bunch of rocket scientists, we sure can be stupid sometimes.