syntax oddities

[Grant Edwards]

On 2018-05-18, Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Fri, 18 May 2018 13:25:52 +0100, Paul Moore wrote:
>
>> In "Corporate" cultures like where I work (where IT and business
>> functions interact a lot, and business users typically use tools
>> like Outlook) top-posting is common, conventional, and frankly,
>> effective.

You work someplace pretty unique.  Everyplace I've worked has done the
whole top-posting and include the whole damn thread in reverse order
thing.  It just doesn't work.  The attached reverse-chronological
history doesn't seem to do _any_ good at all.  AFAICT, nobody ever
reads it.  Occasionally somebody will refer opaquely to something with
the phrase "see below" -- but there's never any indication to _what_
among the fifteen messages and thirty attachements they are referring.

> I don't believe that email is effective in corporate culture *at all*, 
> regardless of posting convention. Email is for sending, not reading or 
> responding to. When people do respond to it, they invariably send some 
> stream of consciousness nonsense that doesn't answer the questions you 
> asked or give you enough instructions to actually get the job done that 
> they want you to do.

And most people seem to believe that if they read more that the first
two sentences of any e-mail it might trigger the apocolypse or give
their cat scabies or something else dreadful.

-- 
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