Never forward Emails without thinking.

Below is an actual email I received from a Professor whom I am working part-time for. I have deleted all names because the Professor is a nice person but this email was just baffling. There are 2 part-timers; the other one is “name deleted for confidentiality”. I have been informed I had to do something about uploading images. However, all I received to alert me was this entire chunk of messages without a greeting, explanation or preamble. Each email is divided by a line, in reverse chronological order. The actual email contents are not really important. They are just there to show the lengthy email exchange between the other part-timer and my Professor that was sent to me in its entirety without editing.

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Subject: RE:

Dear name deleted for confidentiality

I am copying this message to Annie. Getting the morphbank uploads organized requires division of labor. So, we'll have to discuss this in a short meeting.

With best wishes,
Prof
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Subject: RE:

Dear Prof,

Can I have her email account? I can try contact her.

Best Regards,
name deleted for confidentiality
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Subject: RE:

Dear name deleted for confidentiality:

no problem. given that the upload is pretty slow, you may want to share the job with Annie. But I leave it up to you to decide.

With best wishes,
Prof
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Subject: ??

Dear Professor,

I am sorry for this. I myself did not expect to stay at home for that long so I did not bring back any material necessasy for uploading. I will try to catch up with this.

Best Regards,
name deleted for confidentiality
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Subject: RE:

Dear name deleted for confidentiality:

I was just curious what had happened. It'll be good if we can continue with the upload. Annie is more or less done with extracting the text for the species pages.

With best wishes,
Prof
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Subject: RE:

Dear Professor,

I am so sorry that I have not notify you in advance. I went back home in the last couple of days and did not bring back the CD with me. But now I am back to Singapore and will resume working really soon. I am really sorry about making you confused.

Best Regards,
name deleted for confidentiality
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Subject:

Dear name deleted for confidentiality:

It looks like you stopped uploading images. Are you still interested in continuing?

With best wishes
Prof
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I replied to this email that I was confused as to what was expected of me. This incident ended amicably as I got an idea what I was supposed to do in the end. The whole email could have been summarised. The following is what I would have written.

Subject: Images Uploading

Dear Annie,

With reference to what I have discussed with you previously, “Name deleted” is having difficulty uploading all the images alone. I would like you to help out as well. This would require a meeting to be scheduled for the three of us to discuss the division of labour.

You will be taught by “name deleted” how to go about doing your task. You will also be given a CD with the necessary images.

Please revert back to me as soon as possible when you are available for the meeting.

Regards,
Prof

One lesson I learnt about this episode is never be too caught up with the widespread use of forwarding and "cc-ing". Even if you have discussed the matter with the other party previously, it is still better to write a summary and a proper email. It will also show you have thought things through. At the very least, it is just common politeness.

Catfight!

This story is based on a real encounter that happened in a private company in Singapore, noted for being probably the last private local enterprise with a pension program for all employees.

Let’s call the dramatis personae Andrea, Beatrice and the Boss. Andrea, who is single, feels that the workload allocated to Beatrice (who is married with children) was too little since both of them are of the same position. When she confronted Beatrice about this matter, Beatrice was extremely agitated and even swore at Andrea. Andrea decided to let the matter rest but the situation only worsened, with Andrea’s workload multiplying while Beatrice continued to take only less than half the workload.

Finally after a long struggle, Andrea decided to confide in the Boss. She told the Boss that she feels the division of workload was not fair and justified. The Boss thus called Beatrice to the office privately to discuss the matter with her. The Boss told Beatrice Andrea’s stand on the workload and his hopes that they would come to a compromise. To Andrea’s horror, Beatrice started crying and accused Andrea of bad-mouthing her. Beatrice also told the Boss that she is having a difficult time taking care of her children. The Boss empathized with Beatrice and put Andrea’s misgivings aside. He told Andrea to put in more effort to complete the tasks since she is single. After this incident, Beatrice has been treating Andrea as public enemy number one, never missing a chance to snipe at her.

All 3 persons are unlikely to quit as the amount of pension received is determined by the duration of one’s employment with the company. Other than her issue with Beatrice, Andrea has had a pleasant time working at her department as she is given many learning opportunities. In addition, she has been promoted consistently. However, she cannot stop feeling discriminated against because of her marital status or lack there of. Due to the unequal workload, she could not have personal time for a proper social life or be with her elderly parents.

Beatrice, on the other hand, believes that Andrea is out to get her. She feels that Andrea should have more sympathy for her since she is having a tough time juggling between work and family. Even though her workload is lesser than Andrea, she believes she is still doing a good job. As there are such good prospects in the company, she will not consider leaving. She also does not think her snappish behaviour is wrong due to her stress. To her, an occasional slip-up is forgivable.

The Boss, seeing that productivity in the office has not dropped, decided to turn a blind eye to the interpersonal conflict brewing in his department. Since everyone is doing a good job, why disturb the status quo?

I find this relevant because when we enter the working world, we would most likely still been unmarried. How much slack will we take up for our married colleagues? How do you think this stalemate can be resolved?

P.S. I hope no animals will harmed in the making of the above picture.