2003-02-19. nasty emails from coworkers
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For all our projects at the company I work for - Luna Imaging we create discs with images in different file sizes for our client. Images we scan from their source, be it negatives, sketches, 4x5's, whatever. It varies from project to project slightly, but basically it's the same procedure. Every client, for the most part, gets a CD with the images in them. That CD has, facing outward, a piece of card stock paper with the cd number, the date and all the thumbnail images of what the contents of that disc are. When you open the case there's a sheet of regular paper with all the project info on it as well as the accession numbers of the images on that disc and their corresponding thumbnail number. It's like the inner liner notes, the track listing. This is the sheet I had issue with.

Last night I left an email for the project manager of our UCSD project, which is the one I work the most on, regarding these sheets. See when I get the discs for UCSD after the images are scanned and edited I do the final work on them: checking them to make sure they are correct and whatnot, making the Contact sheets for the front, doing image uploads to their hard drives. Stuff. So when I get them, all but one of the people who write the USCD discs put the regular sheet, the *interior liner notes* facing outward, which means I have to immediately turn them around, which is stupid, because they could just come to me that way and would save a step. But I've never said anything because it really hasn't been a big deal. Well, we got these new slim jewel cases that have very narrow tabs on them and they are a real pain in the ass to get the paper into them, especially when it's a superfluous step to begin with.

So I send this email to the wacko guy, Joe, who is the project lead:

Could it be possible to get the UCSD discs with the index sheets already flipped around like Nicole does it? With the new cases in particular it is difficult to get the sheets in the slots and it's taking up a lot more time.

thanks!

I come into work today and my supervisor - who I had CC'd on that email, cuts me off at the kitchen while I put away my food and gives me the warning before I check my email. She says that Joe wrote back and CC'd her, Paul (the head of production) and Nicole (the girl who does them the nice way). She said she'd already talked to Paul about it and that they thought his reaction was inappropriate so I could deal with it however I wanted, but that a response wasn't necessary.

So I check my email... and read this:

Ya sure,

"It's difficult to get the sheets into the slots?"

Gosh... I didn't know paper could pose such challenges....

I can fold them into freakin' origami ducks.

Just show me how you want them. No big deal.

I'm adaptable.

I can evolve.

We have four people writing discs for the UCSD project.

Why was this e-mail sent to me specifically? I sit five feet from you. Why

didn't just SAY SOMETHING?

JR

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT???

He wasn't even at work last night when I emailed him - he got it at home, and he's not even going to be in until Monday. AND he's a psychopathic control freak who would have hit the roof if I didn't go through him with a *production* question.

So after much deliberation and editing I write this back:

Joe,

I will only say that I addressed you on this because you seem to be in charge of the project. I thought you were the appropriate channel. Apparently I was mistaken.

I emailed you because you were not *here* to tell and you still *aren't* here to discuss it with. I didn't think it was an unreasonable production request.

Very diplomatic... I was told that it might be a good idea to take out the last line where I said: *I will not discuss the matter further unless you want to discuss it like an adult*

I also really really wanted to type in:

*and I expect the origami duck when you get back Monday morning, it will look lovely on my monitor*

I also CC'd all the parties involved with UCSD disc writing, as well as my supervisor and his...

What pisses me off is that the management wanted me to just roll over and take it. They said something to him, but no one does anything about his behavior. He's fucking crazy and no one cares. And I worried that if I say anything off color he'll decide that since he can't technically get at me, that instead he'll get at Alyx - who is in his department.

I hate my job.