When were you last really scared?We'd been watching the Shining. We were staying in an old church building. In hindsight, taking the shortcut home after midnight, in the mist, through the old graveyard was a bad idea.
I'm not sure what started it, but suddenly all the hairs on my neck had gone up and I was crapping myself. It was almost as bad as when, after a few cups of coffee too many and buzzing on caffeine, I got freaked out by my own reflection in the toilets.
When were you last really scared?
(
chthonic, Thu 22 Feb 2007, 15:43)
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Professor's message of doom['pologies for length]
I am a faculty member at a university that shall remain nameless. Last week, I received a bulk e-mail from a staff member bleating about a recent mention of the fine old institution on a major news web site - a big deal for this small and friendly learning emporium.
The only problem was that the 'press cutting' was exactly that. The stupid fucking n00b had printed the article from the site, scanned it (2 pages) and ineptly attached 5 rather giant poor quality images to the e-mail. I prefer to send a link to the original page myself.
So frustrated by this - due to it not being the first time such nonsense has occurred - I decided to fire off a quick frustrate-o-gram to a close colleague.
The exact text is unimportant but I'd made very personal attacks and disparaging references to how stupid people were at being unable to use e-mail properly. Needless to say it was liberally sprinkled with words you wouldn't use in front of your mum.
Forgive me for going on a bit, but we're coming up to the bit where I got really scared.
I pressed the send button. After a very short pause, the "Oh fuck, what have I done." thought hit me like a pimp would hit a cheating whore.
Why? Because instead of pressing 'forward' to send the message to my mate, I pressed 'reply'. No problem you may think, any sensibly configured e-mail system wouldn't allow this message to get past my front door.
However, our broken technical infrastructure allows such e-mails to be distributed to world+dog by simply stroking a mouse's back.
In an ironic and cruel twist of fate, it looked like everyone would be soon enjoying my forthright views on abuse of e-mail. I saw law suits, ritual sackings, public humiliation and more.
I knew this was going to happen because a few weeks before, our nice little academic community had the good fortune to be amused by an un-amused posh mum from Switzerland. Everyone on the university's distribution list was filled with joy when they read her eloquently constructed e-mail asking to be "removed from this fucking mailing list".
As it turned out, the admin elves had fixed the gaping loophole and my venom didn't get distributed to the list. It just went to the Dean for his approval before transmission to the world. Lovely!
Actually, I wasn't scared at all. I couldn't give a fuck.
(, Sat 24 Feb 2007, 10:40, Reply)
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