[version_five]

Reminds me of working at a big company where everyone gets openly cc'd on an email and people start using reply-all and soon everyone is bombarded with ridiculous replies. But then the funniest part comes when higher-ups start replying all to say "stop hitting reply-all!", as if that somehow helps. I understand the temptation to say something, but sometimes you just have to let it blow over because anything you do will just make it even more obnoxious

[disjunct]

One of the hardest parts of learning to write for print is learning what's worth writing, especially when doing criticism. It's always helpful to ask who will be reading it, what they want, and what style best conveys it to them.

A lot of our professional norms contradict this. I get unnecessarily long emails every day, I sift through byzantine project structures as a profession, and I attend meetings that could have been an email -- all from people more senior than me.

If there's a message in what I'm saying, it's to question everything, especially in writing. If it makes more sense than what you're doing, write short emails, write short blog posts, write nothing at all.