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03 April 2007
Discovery of the Week: Microsoft Outlook read reciepts. It feels a little illicit to know when people have read your mails and not replied immediately, or -horrors - deleted your mail unread. It's like super secret spy powers!
I always used these at my last office job. Here's a tip for your ego's sake: When you get a receipt that says an email has been deleted unread, it just means that the person never double-clicked to open it. If they use the preview pane, they might have read it there.
I felt much less animosity (relatively speaking) towards my coworkers after discovering this.
arse_hat: Fortunately, most of the wifty people I work with still have trouble using modrun technology like the 'Phone' and the 'Copier', so I feel very assured that most will not turn receipts off.
I use them, selectively. Often with my wife, when I need some quick input on dinner or whatnot and want to know if she is available. But for other, more nefarious reasons as well.
1. I, too, resent read receipt requests.
2. I, too, disable read receipts.
3. It's bad info to have, regardless; if someone allows read receipts and doesn't get back to you, they're no worse than someone who disallows receipts and doesn't get back to you, but you may treat them differently.
Only a true misanthrope would actually habitually wield knowledge-of-read-but-unanswered-email above the table; a more subtle person might use said knowledge in quiet tactical ways, but it's still venturing well into the realm of Meddling.
I remember at a company I used to work for one of the directors sent an e-mail to the entire company with a read receipt. When I aksed him why he said it was because he suspected that most people didn't read his messages. The big fool....
I sometimes use them at work where I know the recipient has been slow to respond to letters or emails without read receipts. But never at home. Where I'm told the sender has requested a read receipt, I always decline to send one.
Yeah, those senders! Let's kill 'im! No! First we stab 'im, then we rape 'im, then we kill 'im!
Good Lord, y'all. I had no idea this would touch off a firestorm of resentment! Things in your offices must be either more political or slower than mine.
Hell, I just thought it was cool to find out whether or not the prez'dent at my job had read the details in my emails which await his response before trekking across the ten-acre campus to nail him down in person because he's so flaky about reading email.
But you can bet I'll turn them off now. I had no idea people could feel so strongly about it.
I dislike them, but I don't think any less of the sender, unless I suspect the sender is being deliberately obnoxious. Mostly I assume they have them generated automatically, and don't particularly care about them either way.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
