cc:
the office is where creativity and efficiency go to curl up with the latest Harry Potter, tune the radio easy listening, and die. But, there is a bright shining bit of awesomeness that comes with it.
There are perks to having your soul nibbled at by abstract crows, like the view from the thirteenth floor, the fact i’m eating free pizza right now that has three foods among my favorites all combined in a pile of delicious chicken, bacon, and hamburger: the trifecta of carnivore goodness, and it’s frowned upon to go over forty hours, which means i can jet anytime.
But those pale in comparison to a little chunk of email sweetness that i’ve grown fond of. The cc: or bc: fields are where the happiness lives. These things are great. You can involve people in a conversation they don’t need to know, want to know, or should know anything about. So great.
People think it makes things more efficient. It doesn’t. It’s still an email. People have started using it instead of the to: in order to keep others involved or to message an entire group. But it’s not the same, because you’re not directing the cc: to participate. You’re just letting him/her in on what’s going down.
You’re being let in on a conversation with no response expectations. So voyeuristic. Today what brought about this worthless post i was privy as a cc: to a back and forth set of somewhat strongly worded emails in regard to our email system. Last week i sat at my desk while about a dozen emails were exchanged in an impromptu satellite project meeting over something being held up with approvals.
It’s sort of like when you’re parents argue, but instead of walking to their room in harsh, muted, tones, they stand opposite one another in the kitchen while you munch a sandwich. As if, by making it so public and forcing you to watch, you will somehow see their justification for starting the argument in the first place. The label of cc: means, “come on into this conversation; the more the merrier. But if you could try and not say anything that’d be mint, because you aren’t important enough to be a to:”
In the typical office, where efficiency barely cracks the long list of priorities, email is just a more efficient way of spreading the bullshit. And the cc: is just an extra set of hands on the rake.