The worst part about my job...

[felinejumper]

...hands down, is that the email address for the lab admin is very similar to the email address for the whole lab mailing list, which means it is not uncommon for emails to the administrator (often sensitive ones!) To instead get sent out to, like, 100 people. (Yes, my lab is the size of a midsize company, it's bizarre).

Recent whole lab emails:

• me, about being out for a root canal (humiliation on top of pain, a thrilling Thursday take)
• But also, someone much higher up forwarding a discussion about someone who felt they'd unfairly been laid off, which, WHEW, did we all silently feel bad about that

In this case, it means I just spent a solid fifteen minutes scrutinizing the address, and ended up getting someone to double check, and am still slightly panicking about it. (Also, because all of my admin emails are "sorry I forgot to do this on time,, but here is...", sorry to all admin people that I'm like this).

Comments

[kaberett]

I MEAN this is what moderation on mailing lists is for, right.

[felinejumper]

If only!!!! There's so many! Ways! For this! Not to happen! SO MANY! Maybe someday we will graduate to a better list serve, but it'll be at least another year ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[kaberett]

OH GOODIE :D

[fhionnuisce]

I relate to those kinds of panics. Ugh.

[donut_donut]

I used to work a job where I handled extremely sensitive and confidential content, and every time I sent an email I'd wind up checking a million times that it was going to the right person, haha. Our email program made it super easy to accidentally fill in the wrong address, and I was just terrified of causing a major incident in this way.

[felinejumper]

Ohgodohgodohgod that's TERRIBLE. I'm now just wondering why...email programs don't ...have a better tactic for this? Better aliasing, larger font, little filters that cross check "hello [x]" with the name. Options! We could live better with tech, but don't!

Sort've pleased I am not the only one to suffer this, though :)

[donut_donut]

A characteristic anxiety of our era!

In my case, it would have helped a bit to be able to turn OFF autofill for addresses. It was just too easy to select the wrong name from that dropdown list with a finger slip.

little filters that cross check "hello [x]

oh, this *is* a good idea...

[chestnut_pod]

All the confidentiality training in the world can't defeat one overzealous autofill email field and its tiny, tiny font. It's a nightmare!