Lexicon of Stupidity

Although I get complaining emails like the following frequently, I felt this was one of the better ones. I think what tickled me the most was the "holier than thou" attitude that came through with the terrible spelling. Rule 1 of writing a condescending email “Check your spelling!” Otherwise, people will just laugh and move on. If you truly want to damage their psyche, check your spelling. An insult that appears to be informed, regardless of whether it is or not, is far more emotionally caustic because it is harder to shrug off than the writings of an idiot.

Submitted for your approval, the following is a scathing email I received and the response that I wasn’t allowed to send back, but really wanted to.

The complaint email is in reference to the auto-generated notification we send out whenever a virus email travels through our server.

P.S. All spelling mistakes are real even the names have been left the same to harass the ignorant.

-----Lorna's Email----

Subject: RE: VIRUS ALERT: W32/Netsky.D@mm

It would appear that you are totally unaware how a worm virus works. Our company email address is probably on at least 200+ computers worldwide. The worm invades an unprotected computer (NOT MINE) and then propagates itself to every address in that computer. The virus did not come from our organisation. We have the latest firewall and anti virus protection. In addition we have every worm removal tool on a daily schedule just in case the dashed thing can wriggle by our excellent defences.

Lorna Judgeington
fakeaddress@don't_want_to_get_sued.org.uk

----My Executively Vetoed Response----

Lorna,

Thanks for that most informative and amusing lesson on worms and email address spoofing. You were meant to teach.

I'm sorry that our auto-response was so threatening to your internet security ego, but bravo on keeping up to date with your anti-virus software. And to have "every worm removal tool on a daily basis", that must take a devoted staff of researchers just to keep up with.

I imagine, new "worm removal tools" are created almost daily and you know how those sneaky "cheeky-monkey" programmers like to hide their worm removal tools.

I would like to note that despite your decision to embrace the brave new world of worm removal tools it would appear you are totally unaware of how a spellchecker works.

Cheers!