The other day my wife and I were discussing the possibilities of coming up with new get-rich-quick kind of meaningless 
certificate. You know the type I mean – where a random organization comes up with a random course to award a certain type of individual a random piece of paper saying that you are now “an official thing”. Me? I am a proud PMP holder (Project Management Professional) because my position somehow ‘required’ it after years of not requiring it. I didn’t learn anything from it. I didn’t appreciate it. I’m not proud of it. Plus I have to renew every three years.
So the certificate we came up with is “Not a Dumb-Ass” (NDA) certificate. It will be $500 to be examined and monitored to ensure that you’re not a dumb-ass. If at any time you are determined to BE a dumb-ass, we will refund half your money. Suffice it to say that based on our initial observations most people will be getting refunds.
Which brings us to the below email exchange which demonstrates our point exactly. The initial email was obviously a mistake by someone sending out a test message to a large group of individuals that bid on a state project. I saw the initial message….and simply hit the delete button because I am the proud holder of an NDA certificate. However, the dozens of people responding will be getting full refunds.
Initial Message:
This is a test, please disregard.
Thanks
The replies start pouring in of course because everyone feels that they have to say something in this world. Please note that these are all of the actual responses to the initial message, complete with misspellings, grammatical errors, stupidity, and general dumb-assery:
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Ok thank for letting me know.
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Hi,
I had spoke with Laurie, cc’d, to chat over PR & communication software.
Laurie, is this still on your radar? It looks like the RFP may have been routed elsewhere.
Thanks,
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Hi,
You do realize that this is in the wild, right?
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Yes, this is going out (it seems) to the registered vendor mailing list…
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Why Am I in this Chain of Mail?
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Please stop responding. Every time you do, the entire groups gets your message. Nobody cares that you don’t want to be on the distribution list. None of us do.
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How am I seeing these emails?, My email isn’t on the CC’d …
Please advise
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Not sure why I’m on this thread, please remove me
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I agree not sure why I’m getting these please remove me from your email
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Works great
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Same here
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Sincerely
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I think this is going out to more people than you know of. I am not government affiliated, but I do work with agencies.
I don’t think I should be seeing this though.
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Hi Guys, not sure why I have been copied but please remove me unless you’re in the market for Body Armor.
Have a great day!
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Why are we testing to my email?
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Please, take my email off the list as well.
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Was our agency suppose to be part of this thread?
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Not sure if I am supposed to be on this thread. Did some add me by accident ?
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We are available if needed.
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Please take my email off list.
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Once again, should I be copied these emails?
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Hello,
I am also confused as to why I am including in this email?
Thank you.
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Obviously, there will be a multitude of individuals who will be turning in their NDA certificate today and have a nice refund heading their way. They can take their family out to Denny’s tonight with that extra change in their pocket.
Flying Here in the Middle of Somewhere... 