Intended recipients, and suchlike...

It's coincidental, I'm sure, but Merlin Mann had a post on his 43 Folders blog relating to email habits people ought to lose. Number two in the list is:

2. The 18-line sig about all the Bad Things that will happen to me if I ever reveal the contents of your privileged, confidential (and unencrypted) message

Boy, did that ever hit a sympathetic note, although in truth, there is no earthly reason to get upset by what is generally unenforceable babbly that is the result of having to justify having a lawyer on staff.

I mentioned a weird set of "terms and conditions" that appeared at the bottom of an unsolicited email the other day. Today, I notice this at the bottom of an email from a client:

Information contained in this message and all attachments are confidential and are intended solely for the exclusive possession and use of the addressee(s) (intended recipient). If you are not the intended recipient...

My brow furrowed over the sense of the part I've rendered in bold. It would seem only proper that this construction means to say that the addressee is the intended recipient, so therefore, if the message is addressed to me, the sentence starting "If you are not..." doesn't apply to me, because I am the intended recipient.

Lo, and behold, when I read the comments to Merlin's post, I see the following:

Whenever I receive a message with that horrible semi-lawyer speak at the end, I use the following signature in my reply:

DISCLAIMER:
By sending an email to ANY of my addresses you are agreeing that:
      1. I am by definition, “the intended recipient”;
      2. All information in the email is mine to do with as I see fit and make such financial profit, political mileage, or good joke as it lends itself to. In particular, I may quote it on my weblog;
      3. I may take the contents as representing the views of your company;
      4. This overrides any disclaimer or statement of confidentiality that may be included on your message.

I think I'll keep this in reserve for a rainy day.

And that ought to be the last word on the subject, unless something really egregious shows up in my inbox!

Cheers...

Frazzled... but kicking!

The day started early with my working on the three remaining hazard reports due today. I lost about an hour of work on the first file when Word decided to inform me it was closing because of an error of some kind. It turns out I never saved any of my keytaps for that file, though the good news is that most of that time was spent making sure the English and Russian matched, and only 15 minutes were required to reinsert all of the corrections and new material.

As I was finishing the second file, Drew called from his place, wanting to know if I had snagged the key to the store that he had left on the filing cabinet. No, I hadn't, and yes, that was the only key to the store that we had between the two of us. Galina had taken my key to Texas with her, and she could recall no other keys around the house.

So, I went into berserker mode and figured that with all the misplaced keys around this place (we must've cut at least a dozen keys to the store since buying the place), I had to be able to find at least one. And by golly, I did!

When I got back from opening the store, I finished the third file and sent it off, and then started to check over the IBSL job, which is a real bear because half the time I was translating, I was looking at a screen that was displaying just a small part of a PDF (at 500% magnification) along with the Word window where I was entering the translation. Looking at a "plain" printout of the source document and trying to check the translation against it requires a magnifying glass and a lot of patience.

At any rate, at just about the time I'd promised Drew I'd be in the store to take any customer pressure off of him (so he could do the daily post office report), I'm on my way out the door, and my cell rings. It's the client who provided me with the amusing PowerPoint file a few days ago, calling with a rush job (and a rush rate) involving 4500 source words to be translated by tomorrow at 8 am my time. I took the job.

While I was downloading that file, another client called with fairly sizeable jobs that are due somewhere from a week from now to the end of the month.

The work seems to be rolling in.

Cheers...