Welcome to the Microsoft email culture
For good or ill, email is the most heavily used communication system
at Microsoft,
so much so that
most people at Microsoft are known by their email addresses,
sometimes more so than by their legal names!
For example,
most everybody at Microsoft knows
Stephen Toulouse
by his email address, "stepto"
(pronounced as if it were spelled "steptoe").
Notice that the name of his personal domain is
www.stepto.com;
he has basically adopted his email address as his persona.
This example is hardly an unusual one
of how one's identity becomes wrapped
up in one's email address.
It's more likely to happen if
your email address results in something catchy and easy-to-say
(like stepto).
Though most people don't take to this extreme;
he tells me that he doesn't typically respond to the name "Stephen" any more!
All this is a rather long set-up for today's story,
which is an amusing look at what happens when somebody
new to the company hasn't quite incorporated the Microsoft email
culture into their world view.
The names have been changed, of course, but the essence of the
story is true.
From: X
To: Y
Subject: What is adamsmit's email address, I need some bug info
Thanks in advance.
Y manages to keep a straight face in the reply.
From: Y
To: X
Subject: RE: What is adamsmit's email address, I need some bug info
Cc: Adam Smith (adamsmit@microsoft.com)
adamsmit
