The 5 Stages of DEFCON for {Annoying Emails}

DEFCON 5

The Nigerian Prince email. We have all seen it. Maybe we typed a joke reply with fictional account numbers and sent it around to a group of family or friends. Perhaps you opened an Ancestry.com account to see if just maybe it could be true. By now, most Spam filters catch these emails and we don’t see them unless we are bored after a couple margaritas at happy hour and decide to look through our Spam folder for entertainment.

DEFCON 4

Vendor holiday sales. Yes, I did buy Nike shoes 13 years ago, before I paid attention to their complete domination of the leadership teams at USATF and U.S. Soccer. Before I realized that giving them even more money was ruining the two sports I care the most about. The two sports I still go out of my way to watch. ‘Unsubscribe’ might take away some of these promos, but sometimes a stray will still sneak through.

DEFCON 3

Mom email. She starts off asking, “Why haven’t you called in 3 weeks?” Ignore the fact that you have exchanged emails every other day and she texts you 3 times a day at least, but you haven’t called??? Then she adds your food assignment for Thanksgiving as if you haven’t brought potato skins appetizer and chocolate pie the last 5 years. She never forgets to tell you what your siblings are up to, even though you follow them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And then, the big finish, she and her friends cannot stop laughing about this brand new meme they have seen, the guy walking with one girl and leering over his shoulder at a girl walking the other direction. Have you seen it? HYSTERICAL.

DEFCON 2

A reminder from your kid’s soccer coach at 10 P.M. Friday night. Whatever game you were watching just finished. Wings and pizza done. Final beer done. Just a quick reminder that you are on the schedule for orange slices and Capri Sun tomorrow. 8 A.M. game. See you there. WTAF.

DEFCON 1

REPLY ALL. This is the one. Someone somewhere in the company gets access to a mailing list and sends out an email about a meeting next week. Except 90 percent of the people on the mailing list shouldn’t be there and have nothing to do with the meeting. You know what comes next. Yep, that guy just hit reply all asking to please be taken off this mailing list. And the next guy responds saying you just sent that to all of us. And on and on and on. Unfortunately, you are the email administrator for the company. And the CEO’s administrative assistant is now calling and insisting you take the CEO off the list. You are trying to explain that you have already done this, but it does not affect the current thread. Send a text home. You are working tonight.