e-mail subject lines are not for playing

I had a very long weekend. Not through any sense of say, responsibility, more that I just drank until I couldn't drink no more, talked until I couldn't talk no more and ate until I couldn't eat no more.

I am tired and quite broke.

I am also rather irritable.

As if it's not bad enough trying to drag your exhausted carcass into work after a weekend of FUN, your co-workers just manage to make it worse.

My suspicion is there's this one... guy... or lady... that kicks off the mood for everyone in each time zone. He steps on someone's foot on the tube, or fines someone for being a penny short for their train fare. It's the guy that cuts you off on the M62, or the female who insists on listening to loud dance music on her pink iPod whilst you're trying to stay awake so you don't end up in Clitheroe.

And after 30 minutes of listening to that 'From Paris to Berlin' song, or having a swollen big toe thanks to that dickhead in Docs. Or whatever shape that one minor infraction appears in, you become slightly less tolerant.

Your view becomes a little less rosy and a little more jaundiced and as you swing your yellow eyes around the escalator you know you're less likely to excuse the minor foibles of everyone else. You look around, forehead wrinkled because you can't afford to have Botoxed, livid and maybe you just let your shoulder bag hit someone when you get off the tram. Shouldn't be blocking the doors anyway right?

You feel some guilt; random acts of violence aren't ever really socially acceptable. The English further fuel your guilt by saying 'sorry' when you run into them. So you walk to the office, maybe slightly sheepish or feeling a bit more empowered.

That guy though? He goes into work bruised and angry. Maybe a little ashamed for saying 'sorry' to you. So then he forgets to make a cup of tea for the girl in the office he doesn't like anyway and hates that he's obligated to do it for her at all. I mean she just sits there, why is she owed tea? She never brews up anyway; she doesn't deserve that cup of tea. Today is the day he stands against English social convention.

That girl, in turn, is so pre-occupied with rejected rage that she forgets all e-mail etiquette. She starts sending out mail to her co-workers, as part of her barely understood duty. But she's flustered so the written word rebels against her and said correspondences become enigmatic code better left to the guys monitoring Echelon.

One of those e-mails eventually finds its way to me with the subject ******URGENT****** when nothing contained either deserves an asterisk or the any URGENCY.

I then send out an e-mail to my department asking the guys to confirm that the SuSE boot disk I downloaded over the weekend connects to a remote server with source files. One of my colleagues, in an attempt to be amusing maybe, calls me a muppet for not knowing.

Then I send him a CAPS LOCK E-MAIL TELLING HIM THAT WAS THE QUESTION I ASKED IN THE FIRST PLACE, using asterisks to hide my irritated swearing. My temper is already frayed, I'm tired and it's 11:30am and the glow of beaning that guy with my bag has already faded.

So, what will my co-worker do now? Will be perpetuate the day of badness? Will he step on someone's foot or send a nasty e-mail? Who else gets to join the chain of employment angst?

Tags: work, e-mail, etiquette, bad days