EmailDotSigs
.
It will come as no surprise to people who know me that I've written (most of) my own email system. When I answer an email the system reformats it and pulls it into vi so I can edit it sensibly, then it spell checks and sends it.
As part of this system I have a file of a few hundred ".sigs" ... some are funny, some are thought-provoking, some are more straight-forward ... it's quite a range. Until fairly recently the system would choose one at random automatically and append it to the outgoing email.
Well ... not any more.
On one occasion I was working on the details of the logistics for a presentation and workshop I'd be giving, and my host had sent me a list of questions. No surprise, except that in this case, all their questions were already answered in the email to which they were replying. The answers were literally in the quoted section of the email.
Sigh
Not the first time, and people are often rushed, and have other things they're working on, and this is only one of them ... so I carefully crafted a diplomatic response.
Then the .sig system appended:
.sig> I'm trying to like people, it's just that .sig> it's so hard getting past the stupid ones. .sig> -- Becker (TV series)
It's a really good job I caught it ... it exxpressed so clearly exactly what I had been thinking.
So I've changed it, and now the system doesn't automatically append a random .sig. Instead it shuffles them and appends them all. I then delete them from the top down till I find one that's appropriate, and ".,$d" the rest.
Much safer that way.
One of the LongStories
Backlinks: LongStories