The ability to email has been around since the 1960’s apparently. That’s news to me. I only know that it’s really taken a hold in the public eye since the late 80’s early 90’s. I mean shit, I had my first email address in the late 90’s/early 2000’s and my friends and I would send shit back and forth to each other about Pokemon.

What blows my mind in my latest rant, is the inability of grown adults with masters degrees to figure out proper email etiquette. For some context, many of the teachers in my school are from the Baby Boomer Generation. Ya know, the generation that is best known for wrecking the economy, housing market and most notably ruining Facebook. This generation really made email what it is today. They made it into something that isn’t a luxury, but a necessity if you want to be a part of society. Yet despite this, they don’t know how to use this tool if their life depended on it. I would guarantee that if you put a gun to the head of a Baby Boomer and told them to format an email professionally or die, 8 out of 10 times you would have to kill the person. While that thought is kinda jacked up and depressing, it certainly would help the crisis of overpopulation.

Here is some more context, we have a new principal in my school. They’re not too bad when it comes to what they put in their email, but it’s too early to tell. As a new principal, they want to make things their own and put their mark on the school. In fact they want to make the school’s mark bigger. I can’t say I blame them. But the latest endeavor is getting a new logo and motto. Being that I have to do a lot of tech related things in my school, I was asked to a make a form in which the faculty would vote on. One fairly new teacher made it known that he not only isn’t star struck by any of the designs, but he found them to all be “deeply flawed” and “would not recommend using them”. Now I don’t know if he’s that bold, or just plain stupid, but he made this known in a reply all to the email that introduced the form. Not only does every single person in my school see his ballsy statement, but the principal does too.

What a power move.

The principal decided to take their time and reply all, basically telling him that his response was out of line. Now, I may only be a teacher for less than 10 years, but I feel like a professional move would not have included a reply all. As a principal, I would have opened up the gates of hell in an individual email or done it in person. But nah, this time the head cheese of the school decided to punch down to this idiot’s level. Keep in mind, this teacher teaches digital art and failed more kids than I probably passed. Nothing, and I mean nothing is good enough for hardo.

There is nothing that really gives you a jolt in the morning watching your principal and some hardo teacher going at it like Harry and Voldemort at the end of the Deathly Hallows.

If this sets the tone for the school year, I think we’re going to see the email bar being lowered. We already suffer from something else I like to call the circle jerk of reply’s.

In my school, teachers send mass emails out when they either go on a field trip, has a special event, or just is in a good mood. I normally don’t have a problem seeing the cool stuff that goes on in my school, because our school culture is probably the weakest points of our building. But now that there is a new head honcho, everyone brutally abuses the reply-all button like it’s a 1950’s housewife that doesn’t have dinner ready when her husband gets home. Every time a new mass email goes out, all the same people tend to hit reply all and send something to the effect of “this is great” or “this is awesome”. When you get the same email from 15 different colleagues, it starts to resemble a circle jerk. Everyone is really just trying to justify why their still in the school and show off to the new principal. But after a while it gets old. Like a fruit that starts getting the fuzzy mold spots.

I honestly don’t know anymore people. Is there some type of PD that either someone can give, or point me to that teaches people how to properly handle an email account? Because if I have to endure another year of people letting power get to their heads or people joining in the circle jerk of shitty email replies, I might honestly loose my fucking mind.

Next week is coming too quickly if you ask me.

#out.