January 29, 2007

Daily quirk: Those nasty e-mails? Turns out you can take them back
January 29, 2007
Those nasty e-mails? Turns out you can take them back
By James Lileks, Star Tribune

January 29, 2007 -- Today's helpful hint: how to keep from getting fired because you mistakenly sent an e-mail about your boss' dogbreath to everyone in your company directory. Saying you were "speaking truth to power" will not help. Sending a follow-up e-mail explaining that your dog's breath smells like rose petals burped up by a baby angel, and you meant it as a compliment, will not help. You must find a way to destroy the e-mail before it arrives in a thousand in-boxes. But how?

Well, Bigstring.com offers a free service that lets you recall e-mails you've sent, or make the messages self-destruct after they've been read. And they're "non-printable." How? you ask. For the love of Pete, HOW? I don't know. Patents are involved. I'm guessing the contents of the e-mail stay on the Bigstring servers, and the naughty bytes never alight on the recipient's hard drive. But let us imagine the following: the boss comes over, taps you on your shoulder.

"I'd like to talk to you about that picture you sent around" he says. "The one where you pasted the CEO's face on a snowman."And there's a carrot stuck in a rather suggestive location?" you ask.

"That's the one."Never seen it," you smirk, thinking: Laugh while you can, monkey boy! I've already destroyed the e-mail. Confident, you stride to the boss' office -- where you find the CEO, a union rep and the HR director, whose lips are pressed together so hard it looks as if she used Wite-Out for lipstick. They're all holding copies of the e-mail, because the boss used a screen-capture utility to take a picture. You. Are. Dead. An unlikely scenario. On the other hand, if you've ever sent a bitter, weepy lovelorn e-mail at 2 a.m. after getting dumped, this might be for you. Whippersnappers! In my time we had to fish them out of the mailbox by hand.