Thomson Reuters in ‘reply-all’ meltdown

Bob CollinsBob Collins Aug 26, 2015
7

The poor folks at Thomson Reuters got ensnared in the reply-all loop today and it’s all Vince’s fault.

You probably know how it goes. Someone sends a company-wide email (usually by mistake) and recipients — for reasons known only to the devil — feel compelled to reply, while letting everyone else know they’re replying by hitting reply-all instead of simply hitting reply.

The problem is the employee — that’s you, Vince — sent his email to 33,000 people, and so every reply went to 33,000 people. Nothing can stop that sort of email tsunami, as the Wall St. Journal reported.

Typically, the problem got even worse when people used reply-all to tell people to stop replying.

Eventually the company’s I.T. brains stepped in to nuke the messages.