Just Plane Inappropriate (3rd edition)

If you are joining us for the first time..welcome and let me give you some background.  I travel for work.  Fairly often.  Not all the time.  But, often enough that I've seen some crazy things. 

One of my biggest pet peeves is people who take their shoes off on the plane. 

I was telling my boss about this the other day and he acknowledged the he will go sans shoes on International flights.  That gets a pass.  They give you booties to cover your feet.

Domestic flights keep your shoes on.

Anyway, here's another pet peeve, people who eat weird, smelly or sloppy things on the plane.

So, the other day, we're in flight.  I look over and there is a man sitting there with his work spread out across his tray table.  He is working diligently.  Scribbling feverishly.  He must have really had some good thoughts burning through him.  Then he paused.  Reached into his lap and pulled out a bag of cereal.

No, not a baggie.  Not a ziploc.  The bag.  That he removed from the standard size box of cereal.

The bag was nearly empty.  There was probably enough in the bag for a kids size bowl of cereal.  I couldn't believe he was going to stick his hand in that bag and snack on handfuls of cereal during our flight.  Seriously? 

So, he unrolled the top of the bag, positioned the bag to funnel the corner and leaned his head back.  Opened his mouth as wide as it could go, lifted the bag upside down above his head and dumped in some cereal.

I was dumbfounded.  So much so that I paused mid-conversation and shook my head.  Then he started scribbling his notes again.

He repeated this two or three times until he got every last crumb of cereal out of that bag.  It was one of the funniest and oddest things I've seen someone eat on the plane.  A grown man.  Graying beard and all. In 20D.  Dumping cereal in his mouth.  I hope he got all of the crumbs out of his beard.

Reply To All

The Reply To All option has a purpose.  And, in most instances it is helpful.  When you are having a conversation amongst a group of people.  Maybe it's about a business decision.  Or, maybe it's about where to go to lunch. Maybe it's about an upcoming trip and what the group wants to do while you are out of town.  Maybe it's coordinating the weekend's plans. In these instances Reply To All is the key to success at group organization!

The Reply To All button is also sometimes misused.  Occasionally I receive an email response (so does the entire office) telling me something that was really only intended for the person who sent the email.  Often, it's just annoying.  Nothing I need to worry about so I roll my eyes, shake my head while muttering 'Reply To All' and delete the email.

The worst is when someone sends out a mass email and someone replies to all with something completely inappropriate for the audience.

Case in point.

Several (many,many) years ago a co-worker sent out an announcement that they were having a baby!!  This exciting email was sent to everyone on our team, our boss, our boss's boss, our President, the receptionist.  Plus all of his family and friends. You name it they got it.  In actuality, they were adopting a dog!   I sent him a 'reply' note of congrats along with several reasons on why I love dogs.  No surprise that I went on and on about how much I cherish my pooch, Sam.

Twenty minutes later a 'reply to all' came through.  His friend wished him well and then went on to explain that often the manner in which the baby was conceived plays a huge impact on the personality of the baby.  He then proceeded to highlight that in this case it must have been...

Doggy Style.

Holy Crap!  I still can't handle it when I think about it today.  I could not believe that his friend literally just sent this to our entire office.  For me it was one of those loud, eyes-watering, stomach-hurting laughs at my desk.  For my co-worker, it was probably one of those moments when you hang your head in embarrassment, look back and wish you had sent it to your intended distro list under a BCC so Reply To All was never ever ever an option. 

I wonder how the baby dog is doing now?  And, I wonder if my former co-worker ever made that mistake again?