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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Reckless use of "reply-all" when organising a school party. Hanging offense, surely?

39 replies

namelessposter · 29/08/2015 03:26

Mum 1 (to 18 other mums. No dads,
Of course, despite several dads being primary-carers, but that's a whole other thread Angry)
"Hi -I am organising a party on X date. Can your child come?"
Mum 2 (reply-all) "yes!"
Mum 1 (reply-all) "great!"
Mum 3 (reply-All) " we can too"
Mum 1 (reply-all) "great!"

Repeat for 6 other mums so far.
WTF is wrong with these people ARGHHHHHGGGHHHHHHH!

That feels better. As you were..

OP posts:
Cloppysow · 29/08/2015 08:01

Reply all is one of the most infuriating inventions in the world. There's a woman at my work who over uses it constantly despite being asked by the CEO to stop it numerous times. Because her ass kissing "yes, that's fantastic! Well done" emails are vitally inportant to the good of the organisation.

Again. As you were.

shrunkenhead · 29/08/2015 08:17

Sorry I'm a bit IT illiterate.... What does hsppen if you click "reply all"??

trinity0097 · 29/08/2015 08:19

The email goes to everyone it was addressed to rather than just the person who wrote it

sonjadog · 29/08/2015 08:21

Everyone included in the original email will receive your reply, not just the person who sent it.

partialderivative · 29/08/2015 08:26

I don't see the problem in mums 2 & 3 replying to all.

If I thought really hard about it, I may get very mildly irritated by mum1 replying to all.

ollieplimsoles · 29/08/2015 08:30

I have a friend who does this on facebook, but she sends the message to 80+ people. Then she gets locked out of her account because facebook thinks she is spamming (which it is really), then she asks a friend if she can send the message from their account, so we get it all.over again!

Witchend · 29/08/2015 08:34

But people's response may depend on who else is going. When we didn't have a car I would wait to see who replied before answering if I needed a lift.
And people will be more inclined to go if the people they/their children get on with go.

I know I was always pleased when I was organising to see reply alls because it encouraged others.

Original poster
namelessposter · 29/08/2015 13:46

Oh come on - if 17 recipients all do this (I.e excl me) then that's c300 emails to get 18 6yr olds to one party. Only another 17 parties to go this year. If you do this, then please ffs STOP!

OP posts:
Original poster
namelessposter · 29/08/2015 13:50

Forgot to say, mum 1 also uses reply-all in respect of lost-uniform emails, as in, 'has anyone seen [name of lost uniform item] in their child's bag?'. Mum 1 "no, not here'"

Because all 17 of us needed to know you hadn't seen it. Thanks for that, love Hmm

OP posts:
hibbleddible · 29/08/2015 13:52

We had this at work, except it was an email to thousands of people. It just snowballed with more people replying to tell others to stop 'replying all' the irony. There were hundreds of emails that day.

Count yourself lucky there is a rather finite number of people in this email.

Original poster
namelessposter · 29/08/2015 13:53

Meh. I take it back. I'm being a caah. Just a caah with a very busy in-box and too much drivel to sort through. She's a really nice person in all other respects. Just needs to mend her evil email ways.

OP posts:
whattodohatethis · 29/08/2015 14:04

The no not seen it helps I think. I generally wait until a few people have replied about uniform. Wait an hour or 2 and see if there's a yes so I don't need to look. If all are no then I will bother going to look and see if I have it [grin

shrunkenhead · 29/08/2015 20:15

Does she know what she's doing? I ask because she might be IT dim like me and think "reply all" means reply to all the email not all recipients!!!

Elledouble · 29/08/2015 21:06

I love a good "Reply All" storm. Particularly when replies are more inventive than just "please stop replying to all!". One notable example included diagrams. Another was just "I agree with the above, but may I take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy Christmas". That was just mischief making, to be fair.

SweetTeaVodka · 29/08/2015 21:29

hibbledibble, I wonder if you work with me? The chair of the Doctor's Mess recently sent an email to every single trust employee detailing a change to their smoking policy.

What followed was a cluster fuck of people hitting reply all to complain about receiving the email when it is irrelevant to them, complaining about the policy change, defending the policy change, and of course complaining about the use of reply all. My favourite was the one from the IT department offering tutorial sessions of how to respond to emails without using reply all!

It was quite entertaining when it wasn't bloody annoying because I was constantly getting alerts that my inbox was over capacity and not being able to receive emails that were actually relevant/necessary.

So no, OP, YANBU!

hibbleddible · 29/08/2015 22:08

Wink Its possible sweattea

Siennasun · 30/08/2015 07:04

People reply all-ing to work emails uneccessarily is very annoying and is generally done by people who are in boring jobs and don't work very hard ime

But in the party situation it's useful to know who else is going. Mum1 doesn't need to reply all to the people accepting tho.

Andrewofgg · 30/08/2015 10:45

Not hanging, not in the work environment.

Boil the next offender in oil.

After that start getting really severe.

mummymeister · 30/08/2015 10:51

nameless - instead of moaning about it to us, why don't you just find out if she understands the "reply all" function. a lot of people give the veneer of understanding IT because they don't want to look foolish saying they don't. I sit on a voluntary committee and have just had to help someone add an attachment to an e mail who had no idea how to do it and felt embarrassed to ask.

AlisonWunderland · 30/08/2015 10:52

Sending irrelevant work mails is just plain laziness and stupidity.

Yes, please send me details of Angela's leaving do on her last day in the Edinburgh branch, when I work in the Exeter branch...

lorelei9 · 30/08/2015 10:56

OP, I hate this too! and the thing that really annoys me, tbh, is the person not using bcc in the first place which would have saved the hassle...but yes, everyone then doing "reply all" - what are they on? if they want to make separate arrangements based on who is going, then they contact them themselves.

and when all this means my email goes out to those who don't already have it, I get really annoyed! Gah.

in terms of work, we had a new rule recently about "reply all" because the head of the section got really annoyed about how many emails he got. I was really glad he put his foot down on that. I do just "delete" for those though - if anyone is stupid enough to put actual information in those long sagas, they get what they deserve when it is missed.

ginmakesitallok · 30/08/2015 10:56

God I hate reply all in work emails. Some groups I'm involve with I just get cced into emails for info, fine. But when they are arranging meetings Di I really need to know that X can make it but might be a bit late because of something else, that y can't make it because she's on annual leave etc etc etc.????? There needs to be some reminder before you can reply all, along the lines of "are you sure you need to reply all?" When they click yes, "really?? Are you SURE?"

Gymbunny1204 · 30/08/2015 10:59

I thought reply all meant it would go to everyone in your contacts list, not just those in the email chat.

EduCated · 30/08/2015 11:02

I belong to a group locally which sends out a lot of emails. They do not understand BCC, despite many attempts of explaining. That is annoying Angry

ginmakesitallok · 30/08/2015 11:05

No gym bunny! Thank god!