When I was but a wee lad my grandmother bought a specific brand of trash bags because it was supposed to include a set of stickers with a popular movie on them. My cousin and I tore open the box when we got home and, surprise (!), there were NO stickers included. We got a bum box. My grandmother, being the patient Saint that she was, advised us to each write a letter which she promised to mail off to the Glad Company. I wrote a nice polite letter letting them know how disappointed I was to not get those stickers and how much I loved stickers and how I wished I could get some of those stickers mailed to me. My cousin wrote a letter using the most off color language he could think of (and had overheard from his parents) to basically let the company know he thought they were elephant butts. Although we both shared the same anger and were equally upset, the way we chose to communicate was critical. Sure enough a few weeks later I got a box of stickers in the mail and a nice apology while I found out my cousin got a letter sent to his parents, with a copy of his letter included, and got his behind beaten. Violence begets violence and bad communication begets bad communication, although I must say his grammar has improved and I do look forward to getting his nice, polite letters from prison each month. I think he has finally learned that you do catch more bees with honey than vinegar.

 Now, more than 30 years later I have also witnessed people get fired for brash communications sent out via e-mail or over the internet. In the business world, even though we all speak the same language, technology has helped take down the buffer or the pause we used to have to collect our thoughts. It can be very hard to mold the English language into conveying the exact specific thought, conflict and emotion we all have internally. Something written hastily or something fired off while in the throes of an emotional upheaval can often cause much more conflict down the line than the actual incident itself. Even though e-mail feels like a throwaway form of communicating to many people, computer servers DO track those e-mails and bad interactions have a nasty habit of providing more evidence against you than you could ever speculate. Just remember that the HR department always wins and back away slowly while apologizing and bowing under their gracious gaze. As Postman says, "(Management) is made up of procedures and rules designed to standardize behavior." (p. 142) Any attempt to upset that behavior has to be addressed. "That is why John Stuart Mill thought bureaucracy a "tyranny" and C.S. Lewis identified it with Hell." (p. 85)

 A recent example of the e-mail system coming back to bite you in the rear and removing deniability comes directly from our own President and Vice President in the White House. It is hard to deny you are using the Government for Republican political purposes when there are e-mail directly traceable to you and your staff. Although when you are in the Government you can apparently still deny the communication and then delete the e-mails from the servers, destroy the servers and fire anyone who has the ability (or gumption) to try and track that information down. Wouldn’t a letter or a sticky note have worked better for them? From the Washington Post in April 2007 - “After promising last year to search its computers for tens of thousands of e-mails sent by White House officials, the Republican National Committee has informed a House committee that it no longer plans to retrieve the communications by restoring computer backup tapes, the panel's chairman said yesterday.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/26/AR2008022602312.html

 Finally, for this assignment let me reflect on an e-mail incident closer to home that occurred when there were issues about parking with people on the night shift at the hospital. Someone, obviously frustrated and not used to using e-mail, managed to send a bitchy letter about parking to every single person working for the State of Oregon. It was bad enough that it was a rant hastily cobbled together, but his use of inappropriate (foul) language and bad grammar took it over the top. To make matters worse, people replied and responded to EVERYONE on the e-mail list. People either encouraged this person or scolded him for venting via the e-mail system, using equally bad grammar and bad language. It got to the point where the Union had to get involved and tell all the employees to quit sending e-mail related to “the parking issue.” This person who had worked the night shift for years and flew under the radar was now in the spotlight with more than 40,000 people hanging on his every word and judging him by his bad grammar. It was a big deal and he could have sent it to the appropriate channels but instead the message got lost in the sheer volume of the message itself. "Bureaucracy is, as Max Weber describes it, an attempt to rationalize the flow of information, to make its use efficient to the highest degree by eliminating information that diverts attention from the problem at hand." (p. 84) 

 So be nice out there, behave yourselves and learn to bite your tongue when instant retribution seems to be out of your grasp. Remember that the tortoise usually wins the race. I’ve learned there’s something even more satisfying than having a boss or teacher scolding you for using bad grammar or improper words and making a jerk of yourself by pointing out how they used bad grammar or the wrong word in their rant. Not saying anything and letting them vent and then seeing the look on their face when they realize what they’ve done and accepting the apology is way better. It’s the little pleasures in life that make it so sweet and juicy.