08/12/2010
NEWS STORY
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It was an innocent enough request, but it went so spectacularly wrong.
Other than Christmas greetings and the desire to wish one and all a happy and prosperous New Year, this is the time of year when everyone likes to update their contact book as they look ahead to the new season.
When the first e-mail arrived at 14:32 on Wednesday afternoon, the request was straight forward enough: "We are in the process of updating our media lists in advance of the 2011 season. As your email address is currently held on our contacts database, we would like to know whether you wish to remain on file to receive future press releases and updates from Vodafone McLaren Mercedes.
"If so, please confirm the following information back to us for our records," it continued. Name, Organisation, Contact email address, Job title and Mobile number.
"Alternatively, if you wish to be removed from our contacts list, please reply placing the word 'REMOVE' in the email title bar."
The Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team then thanked the recipient for their co-operation, whilst warning that: "The contents of this email are confidential and for the exclusive use of the intended recipient. If you receive this email in error you should not copy it, retransmit it, use it or disclose its contents but should return it to the sender immediately and delete your copy."
By 14:36 - quick to react eh! - Pitpass had replied, giving all the details as requested, after all, of course we want to continue hearing all the latest official news from Woking's finest.
But there's always one isn't there, that idiot who instead of simply hitting the 'reply' button presses 'reply all'. In this case, 'reply all' meant not only Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, but PR Distribution - General Media and PR Distribution - Priority Media... which meant everyone the original e-mail has been sent out to.
However, there wasn't just one, pretty soon the Pitpass inbox contained three, four, five e-mails from journos and PR people all eager to be retained on 'the list'.
Realising that there was a problem, at 14:41, McLaren sent out the following: "Dear colleagues, please reply only to Vodafone McLaren Mercedes. Please do not select 'Reply All' in your response."
But it was too late, by now other than giving the requested details and hitting 'reply all', some clever chaps and chapesses took to using the same button to tell their 'colleagues' to cease. Pretty soon it was a free for all.
While some got irate, others saw it for the glorious f*** up it really was, indeed a certain F1 racer turner pundit wrote: "What a ridiculous f*** up. Brilliant." Adding; "Hello everybody. My Blackberry battery is not prepared for this. Happy Christmas. Martin."
As PCs, laptops, Blackberrys and all manner of devices groaned under the sheer numbers of responses to the original request for details, abuse to the idiots who had pressed 'reply to all' and people simply out for some winter naughtiness, even former racer Derek Daly got in on the act. "back at ye.....!" laughed the Irishman as the Woking outfit's spam nightmare snowballed out of control.
At 21:32, eight hours after McLaren sent out its original innocent little e-mail, the madness continues, some still getting hot under the collar - even demanding to be removed from the mailing list - whilst others have great fun, suggesting that this off-season get together is like a Facebook group whilst another suggests that the Ferrari PR list is included.
As Pitpass editor Chris Balfe suggested to one of his good friends in Woking, the team's contact list appears to have more than its fair share of Jeremy Hunts, but it's good fun watching it from a distance.
While the sorry saga can't be hurting Vodafone's profits, one can visualise the senders of those "pray for me", "my father left $14.5m in a bank" and "having problems getting it up" e-mails rubbing their hands in glee.