[nickysielicki]

> One morning I sent the team an email with the provocative title “My WorkSpace has Disappeared!” They read it in a panic, only to realize that I had punked them, and that I was simply letting them know that I was able to focus on my work, and not on my WorkSpace.

"Jokes on them I was only pretending!"

Do people actually do this in a corporate setting?

I'll assume that this is just fluff for the sake of being able to post an advertisement under the guise of a blog post.

[jeffbarr]

I wrote the post and I can assure you that I actually did this. Our internal slogan is "Work Hard. Have Fun. Make History." I try my best to do all three.

This was not fluff, it was my actual story.

Also, this is a corporate blog and I am part of the marketing department.

[nickysielicki]

Every workplace has their dynamics, and I don't know what your team is like. I didn't think you'd read that comment, but you did, and unfortunately it took your comment for me to realize the degree to which that comment is mean-spirited. I'm sorry for that, and it doesn't reflect well on me.

I do stand by what I'm saying there, though. One of my first bosses treated email as sacrosanct, and that rubbed off on me. His workflow was centred around his email queue, and email was the official ledger. If we talked about an idea, the first thing I did afterwards was put it into writing and email it. He had a newborn and was busy as hell, but he always got his job done.

With conversations that touch several separate groups, and with people who are responsible for a lot of different things, email becomes the common denominator. All it takes is one "URGENT!!!!" subject line to throw someone off-kilter. If that turns out to be a joke, you've interrupted them for nothing. And for very busy people, that can add up and be the difference between catching their bus home to see wife and child. It probably seems a bit melodramatic to liken it to directly taking away time spent with family, but I think it's a reasonable common courtesy to leave all jokes outside of the most formal form of written communication.

Not a big deal for a rare joke or an email that stays within a couple people, and that's what this sounds like. But the principle is something that I appreciate.

[commandshift90]

Jeff is definitely genuine here. Can confirm. He's a fun guy.

[jeffbarr]

I hope so!