| Some other handy passive-aggressive electronic mail techniques, courtesy of Bernard Greenberg from Symbolics (BSG 4/11/84): https://www.donhopkins.com/home/archive/humor/flame-manual.t... >Replying to one's own message is a rarely-exposed technique for switching positions once you have thought about something only after sending mail. >You get 3 opportunities to advertise your Rock band, no more. >Idiosyncratic indentations, double-spacing, capitalization, etc., while stamps of individuality, leave one an easy target for parody. >The entire life, times, collected works, expressions, and modalities of Zippy the Pinhead are a common ground for much of the metaphor, rhetoric, and invective which pass daily through the mail. An occasional parenthetical "yow" CORRECTLY USED will endear one to the senior systems staff. So will puns and other remarks addressed directly to the point. >Including a destination in the CC list that will cause the recipients' mailer to blow out is a good way to stifle dissent. >When replying, it is often possible to cleverly edit the original message in such a way as to subtly alter its meaning or tone to your advantage while appearing that you are taking pains to preserve the author's intent. As a bonus, it will seem that your superior intellect is cutting through all the excess verbiage to the very heart of the matter. >Keeping a secret "Hall Of Flame" file of people's mail indiscretions, or copying messages to private mailing lists for subsequent derision, is good fun and also a worthwhile investment in case you need to blackmail the senders later. |