Just Sad

First, these posts seem to be getting later and later. Sorry about that, work has been filling my mornings with . . . well . . . work, I guess.

Have you ever been CC'd on an email thread which you regretted witnessing? Yesterday featured such a thread for me.

I was included on the Carbon Copy line of an email from our Software Build Manager to our Development Manager which posed a question about process, with specific inquiries about the method we might go about altering that process.

This email was met with a reply which was terse and bordering on rude.

The reply suggested that alterations in the build process were subject to approval by the build team, especially when the changes came in a manner which seemed arbitrary.

An explanation arrived in reply. It was brief. To the tune of "your process sucks and this is better" brief, to quote. There was an included offer to set up a conference call to discuss the details.

The Build Manager replied his thanks at the conference call offer.

The Development Manager replied to that with "I was being sarcastic about the conference call".

And the hostilities, which I would classify as veiled until this point, escalated. Angry emails soared back and forth across the twenty feet or so separating the two managers until I feared that the only possible outcome would involve an actual physical confrontation between these two men.

If there is ever a thing which would cause a person to feel ashamed on behalf of the whole male gender, it is most likely a slap fight between two software professionals.

Seriously. It makes a witness want to just turn in his penis and call it a day.

Fortunately a VP (and by now the CC list included people I'd never ever heard of) stepped in and threw the ice water of cooperation and team spirit on the whole tussle and both settled into an uneasy silence which has carried over for the past 18 hours or so.

It is kind of nice.