Stupidity in the Workplace

I love e-mail. It's a great way to let someone know something without having to talk to them. This is especially useful if you don't like the individual and can't stand the sound of their voice.

However, I think we depend on it too much.

Take, for example, this incident that happened last week where I work. I have a desk job, along with some others that I work with in the same office. With that being said, we aren't chained to our desks. Our job takes us out of the office quite frequently.

One of my coworkers, we'll call him Adam, received an e-mail on Friday at 1 p.m. that said he needed to be in a training class at 5 p.m., just four hours away, for some work he would be doing this week. Now, we also had an company picnic that started at 2 p.m. that was pretty much mandatory for us to go to. He left work at 1 p.m. to go get his wife and bring her back to the picnic. Although this was a company picnic, it was strongly encouraged that family come as well. Now, Adam, being the stand up guy that he was, did the right thing, although he had work to do, and went to the picnic. The picnic went beyond our work hours so no one went back to work when it was over.

Now, here we are, Monday morning, and he's getting yelled at by our boss because he missed the training Friday evening that he knew nothing about.

Stupidity in the workplace. How in the hell can he be in trouble for that? It wasn't his fault. Which leads me to the reason for this post.

If you have something important to tell someone that is time sensitive, do not rely on e-mail to get the job done. That's just stupid. Have we progressed so far in this technological age that a phone call for something this important is no longer appropriate?

I'm not against technology, but we have to use common sense. E-mail is great, but you have to be smart about it. Even if we didn't have the picnic to go to on Friday evening, there's no guarantee that he would have gotten the e-mail since our job requires us to be out of the office a lot.

I guess I'm a little old fashioned in a way. I prefer to call someone when I have a problem with something or need something fixed or what have you. I like the comfort of knowing that my message was conveyed right then and there instead of wondering when someone is going to check their e-mail.

Did you know that some businesses don't even allow you to call them if you have an issue with them? E-mail is the only way to contact them. That's just stupid and horrible customer service.

If you're the type of person that sends e-mail at the last minute for something that needs to be completed yesterday, please stop it. You're an idiot. And if you continue, don't be surprised if the thing you needed done doesn't get done on time. It's your own fault. Don't blame it on the person that didn't get the message.

Only you can prevent workplace stupidity!