Autofill

by Selena Thomason

Three hundred emails!  Susan hated this part of returning from vacation most of all.

She actually started dreading it while still on vacation.  She was sitting on the beach reading a trashy novel when the thought came to her that work was piling up while she was away.  She knew she’d come into the office Monday morning and find her mailbox stuffed with paper, her inbox piled high, and tons of email waiting to be read and dealt with.

The email would be the worst, she knew.  Logisystems did most of its interoffice business via email. Ninety percent of her email would be requests for her to do something.  They wouldn’t be FYI; they would be FYTD – for you to do.  She felt overwhelmed and stressed just thinking about it.

And now the time had come.  Slightly more than three hundred new messages to be dealt with. Susan wanted desperately to go back on vacation or at least to click them all into the trash and cry “system error.”  But instead she made a cup of tea – an admittedly very large cup of tea – and started reading.

There were the usual requests for this and that – budget numbers, sales numbers, mailing lists, blah, blah, blah.  Oh, and here among the work, an email from her brother inviting her to a cookout this weekend.  That’s positive at least, she thought, until she realized it was actually for last weekend.  Uggh, more information requests, meetings to be scheduled, a suspicious email with a probably infected attachment which she promptly deleted unopened.  More stuff to do, but wait, what’s this?

“Nicole’s performance has continued to slip,” the email began. “She called in sick seven times in the last two months and nearly every time it was either Monday or Friday. I have addressed the issue with her repeatedly but there has been no improvement.  Therefore I am recommending that we fire her immediately.”

That was weird.  The email was from Jonathan Parker, a supervisor in the marketing department. Susan barely knew him.  Marketing was three floors up.

She knew Nicole though.  They met at happy hour sometimes.  Nicole was fun to be around, if maybe a little too much of a party-girl for Susan’s taste.  They weren’t good friends but Susan hated the thought of her being fired.

Why had she gotten the email anyway?  It clearly wasn’t intended for her.  Nicole and Jonathan worked in a completely different department.  But the email was addressed to her.  It didn’t make any sense.

Then Susan remembered that Jonathan’s boss was named Suellen. That autofill will get you every time!  “Which is why I have the option turned off,” she said triumphantly to no one in particular.

What to do?  She wanted to warn Nicole.  She thought briefly of forwarding the email to Nicole then came to her senses. Email too easily reaches unintended recipients.  That’s what got us in this mess in the first place.

She picked up the phone to call Nicole.  Her podmate answered.  When Susan asked for Nicole, her co-worker said, “Sorry, she’s out sick today.  You want to leave a message?”  Susan wished she had Nicole’s home or cell number.  “No thanks,” she said.

“Hi, Susan, welcome back,” a voice said above her.

Susan looked up to see Jonathan Parker standing over her.

“Uh, hi, thanks.”

“Um, I know you just got back.  I have a delicate issue to discuss with you,” he stammered as he came further into her cubicle so he could lower his voice.  “You know, I just realized that I accidentally sent you an email that I meant to send to someone else.”

He must have talked to Suellen and discovered that she never got his email.

“Have you had a chance to wade through your email yet?” He continued.

“Um, yeah, I was just doing that.  I did get an email from you but it didn’t seem to be for me so I deleted it.  I was gonna let you know so you could resend it to whoever it was supposed to go to, but you beat me to it I guess.”

“It was a rather sensitive email.  I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that since the information wasn’t intended for you that you shouldn’t pass it along to anyone else.  I trust that I can rely on your discretion.”

“Well, sure.”

Jonathan started to walk away, then as if it was an afterthought he added, “Oh, just so you know, I mentioned this incident to your department head, just to keep him in the loop.  Professional courtesy, you know.  Inter-departmental communication and all that.”

“Of course.”

“Thanks for your help on this.”

“Sure.  And hey, don’t forget to disable that autofill feature.”

Jonathan laughed uncomfortably.  “Will do,” he said as he walked away.

What a mess.  Susan hated email like never before.  She felt powerless and guilty the next day when she heard that Nicole had been fired.  She never went back to the bar where they used to hang out.  She couldn’t even bear to walk by it. She did however begin a one-woman mission to disable autofill company-wide, in honor of Nicole.

Selena Thomason writes mostly science fiction, but sometimes feels called to other forms and genres. She is Managing Editor of "Dragons, Knights, and Angels" magazine, as well as an assistant editor and columnist at "The Sword Review."  Her previously published works are available at http://selenathomason.com/.  Contact Selena.