The 6 Most Disastrous Uses of Work Email Ever

"Hi Jenny, I went to a dry cleaners at lunch and they said it would cost $4 to remove the ketchup stains. If you could let me have the cash today, that would be much appreciated. Thanks Richard."

Of course, we can't read Richard's mind, so maybe he had some great reason as to why, based on an accident, he had to demand financial restitution from a secretary making a fraction of his six-figure salary. Maybe he suspected it wasn't an accident? Or worse, that it wasn't ketchup.

Either way, when Jenny didn't respond fast enough for his liking he went to her desk a few days later and left her a note to collect the four bucks, without which he could obviously not make his mortgage and car payments.

As it turns out Jenny was a little slow to pony up the cash because her mom had gotten sick and died, which on the grand scale of things ranks slightly higher than paying some bullshit claim for dry cleaning. This explains why she was pissed when she came back to work and she decided to offer a reply:

"Obviously your financial need as a senior associate is greater than mine as a mere secretary. Having already spoken to and shown your email and Anne-Marie's note to various partners, lawyers and trainees in ECC&T and IP/IT, they kindly offered to do a collection to raise the $4"

We think she was being sarcastic. Also, she copied her message to a few hundred people in the office.

The Fallout:

Richard's pathetic attempt to get the money and Jenny's subsequent bitch slap response was forwarded to pretty much everyone in the city, and then it was loose on the internet for the whole world to see. Soon the law firm had to respond by investigating the incident (the investigation likely consisted of the partners at the firm asking Richard why he was such an asshole).

This little guy doesn't seem to mind the ketchup.

Eventually Richard resigned from the firm, claiming he wanted to take time off to study and not at all because he became the laughing stock of lawyers everywhere. It may not have worked out much better for Jenny, however, as she also took a leave of absence, indicating co-workers wouldn't deal with her after the incident. Probably not by email, anyway.

The website of the law firm where Bradley worked soon crashed from all the people trying to see what Bradley looked like.

This.

There was even some collateral damage as a website of a company that employed a completely different Claire Swire went from an average of 500 hits to over 70,000, confirming once again that even border line pornographic interests can drive Internet traffic like nothing else.

As for the two lovers, Bradley was suspended by his firm and Claire went into hiding, the shame of having once performed oral sex sure to stain her family for the next five generations.

"I wouldn't trade places with you for "the world"".

We have no idea why she put quotes around "the world" but we suspect that it makes "the world" into something even more awesomely huge than just the normal world thus increasing the power of her put down. This inspired Melinda to pull out something she had been saving since elementary school:

"I wouldn't trade places with you for the world...I don't want your figure!"

This shit just got extremely real.

Melinda then had to let everyone know that Katrina was in fact probably a slut by claiming she had been with a lot of guys. Then in a confusing, or perhaps cunning, twist depending on whether you still watch High School Musical, Melinda ended the fight by writing:

"I have 5 guys at the moment! haha."

It's unclear whether Melinda caught the flaw in her logic, but given that both of them declined to keep the fight to themselves it's unlikely she thought that her argument was anything but brilliant.

Unrelated photo

The Fallout:

The lawyers and other staff who had ringside tickets to this electronic hair pulling were so entertained that they decided to share the emails with people outside the firm as well. Eventually senior partners of the firm were getting the emails from friends ... at other firms.

Katrina and Melinda were fired for misusing the firm's email and for being bitchy to each other in clear contravention of the firm's "No Bitches" policy. The lawyers who sent the email to their friends did not receive any punishment, which totally pissed off Melinda's dad. He considered legal action, until he realized suing a law firm might be like trying to rob a gun store with a knife.

Lucy Gao was a 20-year-old intern at Citigroup who was really fucking excited about turning 21. Whether it was because she was looking forward to drinking or because she was finally getting that pony she was promised, she wanted to make sure everything went perfectly.

To help celebrate her big day she planned a party at the Ritz for a few of her friends and sent out an email with the details for the party. Lots and lots of details, with the word "Ritz" inserted like some kind of Tourette Syndrome tic:

" ... to ensure your entry into the Ritz...Lucy's 21st Birthday Party at The Ritz...I have arranged the Ritz to host a Champagne Reception with a selection of Ritz Champagne....A specially made birthday cake has also been ordered and the Ritz waiters will kindly serve you each a generous slice with Ritz cutleries,"

What? No Ritz crackers?

Part of Lucy's problem seemed to be that her friends were apparently complete morons. To help make sure they made it to the party she felt she had to give them explicit directions:

"When asked "how can I help you Sir/Madame?", you reply "I am here for Lucy's Birthday Party at the Rivoli Bar""

She makes it sound like her friends are so incompetent they'd have to be herded to the party like cattle. If so, we can only imagine their disappointment when they finally made it there and realized there wasn't going to be a ravioli bar.

Not a thing.

Lucy also had a fairly strict hierarchy of friends and wanted to make sure everyone knew what their place was in the pecking order, as evidenced by the schedule for arrivals at the end of her email:

"ARRIVAL TIMES: [Please stick to these as best as you can, thank you]

9:00pm: Lucy, Sophie Sandner, Kajai, Mandeep, Preet, Sanami, Su, Lisa, Kate.

9:15pm: Phoebe, Sophie Seugnet, Theo, Dmitry, Ed, Nikolay, Paul, Nick, Harry.

9:30pm: Marco, Andrea, Jess, Ovi, Yuki, Olga, Kim, Marcelo, Ulyana, Krystal, Dan.

9:45pm: Sunita, Alan, JingJing, Emma.

10:00pm: Anthony, Rachel, Roger, Uli, Yogi, Gharzi"

If you were Sophie, or Kajai, you were one of the chosen few. If you were Anthony or Rachel though you were pretty much one of the kids her mom forced her to invite as you were not allowed to come to the party until 10, even though the champagne reception started at 9.

Sorry, Gharzi. You wait in the elevator until 10:00.

The Fallout:

The email was forwarded on by her friends, (probably the pissed off 10 o'clock invitees) and soon made the rounds of all the investment banks. From there it escaped into the internets and here we are. At some point somebody sold t-shirts.

Lucy finally responded to all the people having fun at her expense and tried to convince us that the email was just a joke between her and a couple of her guests. Her comedy stylings no longer appear at Citigroup.

Dramatic reenactment of Old Horse Fat.

It seems Patrick suffered from a condition that made him extremely horny from reading contracts all day. He had spent the day having the same kind of erotic fantasies we've all had. You know the one where you are having hot sex, just you, the girl and your best friend, normal stuff. Let's face it, when having sex doesn't every guy think it would be even better if there was one more wiener involved? Especially if your friend has an awesome name like "Venn King".

"Man, if only there was another hairy dude here this would be perfect."

Carol is believed to be a lawyer at another law firm and the term "old horse fat" is how they say "dick" in England (or at least we hope so). This would mean Patrick was an old horse fat for mistakenly sending his response to his buddy and the other 30 people on the email thread. Patrick's menage a trois invitation remained a secret for about 10 seconds, until his friends managed to stop laughing long enough to hit the forward button.

The Fallout:

The partners at his law firm didn't see the humor in all this and in typical fashion suspended him while they investigated. Being high paid lawyers they confirmed that he did in fact use his work email to arrange a tag team and fired him.

Patrick should have known that the proper way to invite a friend to make sweet love to your girlfriend is in person, maybe over a beer. He paid for this breach of etiquette with his job. We were unable to find out what happened to Carol or Venn but we're happy to be able to add "the old horse fat" to our dick vocabulary.

For emails that you don't want to get in your inbox, check out 6 Emails You Get When Your Company Is About to Go Under. Or allow Michael Swaim to take you on a guided tour of The 8 Least Necessary You Tube Tributes in today's video.