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Complete email meltdown - all because of a little sugar

Yesterday when I sat down at my desk a little unassuming email from Sysadmin@mail came through with the Subject: Notification. The email stated:

You have been assigned to the following workflow step:
Message: The document GE10000085 has been put on hold
Workflow Name: invoice_SugarWorkflow
Step: First_Approval
Content Item: Invoice 2 (GE10000085)

Little did I know that that this email would eventually bring the corporate email to a near meltdown.

People began hitting "Reply All" and that is when the real fun began.

By then end of the day each of the 60,000 employees had received between 250-300 emails in their Inbox. It started slowly with a few folks telling everyone in the world they didn't know why they were receiving the email, then the quandary turned to frustration to the "Reply All" onslaught.

Next people began telling EVERYONE TO QUIT REPLYING TO EVERYONE in at least 5 different languages that I saw. These then became angry emails, I believe one stated, "Cut this crap out." To the whole world - of course.

By the end of the day it seemed to slow, however when I was walking out the emails began again thanks to the fact that the company is truly global and the folks in Malaysia were just getting into work to discover an unassuming email stating there was an escalated sugar issue... and so on and so on and...

I guess this isn't the first time that this happened. Back in 1999 a woman emailed all 60,000 employees to see if it was OK if she took her kid to the pediatrician - from what I heard things got really nasty.

Comments

Chris said…
They should have an episode like this on the Office, oh wait they sorta did! Remember the email pics Michael sent out of him and Jan on vacation that went to the whole agency? Classic!
5:08 PM
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