Google Mail has this thing now. If you write an email complaining about your boss, only you end up sending it to him, instead of to your buddy (let’s pretty they’re both named Tristan), you’ve got 30 seconds in which to claw it back. It’s pretty cool. If you’re quick enough that is. (I’m not). And the best thing is that he would never need to know you sent it.
WordPress allows you to do the same thing, with blogs. Say you’re totally pissed off and you just have to write about it. So you do. And then, after having posted it, you decide that in complaining publicly you’ve just broken your own cardinal rule, which is that you’re not allowed to whine. Well then, you can just go back and either put the blog back in “draft” mode until you can think of a better way to handle it, or you can just delete it.
It’s pretty cool, really.
Except…..well the moment you publish the damned thing, an email goes out to all of your subscribers, gleefully announcing that the whiny bitch blog is up, and they should come read it.
Only they click on the link, only to get a 404 error. (That’s the error that says “oops. You probably spelt the URL wrong. At any rate you’ve come to the wrong place. Now go away.”)
This is what happened last night.
I wrote a blog called “When Is It OK To Say It’s ‘Hammertime?'”. Then, after reading it again, I discovered it had no redeeming value. So I took it down. I mean, the subject of that regrettable blog still has me pissed off, but I’ll deal with it.
This is a rare experience. Usually, if I’m unsure about a blog, I’ll post it to the draft folder and no one gets notified that it’s there, or pending. I rarely claw back blogs like that.
Which is to say “I’m sorry”. I know that many of you got notified about a new blog, and you came here expecting to read something entertaining, only to run into the 404 wall.
It probably won’t happen again.
View from a Wolf 
Wolfie,
I read your previous blog “Hammertime”. Unfortunately, WordPress sends your entire blog as an email not just a notice that there is a blog, so I was able to read the entire rthing before coming to your blog.
But, if it makes you feel any better, I’m not really sure you revealed as much as you think you did. Not to someone whose not involved in the situation at least. It just seemed like another interested blog from the Wolfshades. I was ready to answer, give my opinion…and then was disappointed that it had been deleted.
But no worries Wolfie! It’s all good. And just cuz I really want to give my opinion on it: There is never an excuse. Hospitalization or Death are really the only excused I’d accept especially with so much technology nowadays to reach someone….but other than that, it’s just lame not to pick up a phone and let you “friend” no you can’t make it. (feel free to delete this comment too boo if you don’t want it up since it touches on what you deleted — but, I wanted to express myself and let you know you were right!).
Hugs,
Carmen
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*facepalm*
You know – I knew that, about WordPress emails, but totally forgot all about it. Had I remembered, I would have just the blog up. Oh well, there are only 30 subscriptions to my blogs, so the damage wasn’t too bad. (That of course equals anyone who has ever read my blogs, ever, but who’s counting?)
I wasn’t worried about revealing too much of myself. I just don’t like to read (or write) a lot of ranting, whiny stuff. In a way though, I’m kind of glad the blog got out anyway. I got to say a few things that needed saying. The fact that the blog isn’t here anymore is OK. I said what I needed to say and that’s enough. No need for a constant reminder of it. :)
I agree with you Carmen: there was just no excuse for what ultimately was rude behaviour, short of a bad accident or death. Even at the old “death” excuse, I’m going raise one eyebrow of doubt.
Anyway, the bad guy in all of this is out of the picture. I made sure he knew a line had been crossed, and that I wasn’t open for even the possibility of a repeat performance.
Oh and the best thing? It doesn’t bother me anymore. At least, not as much as it did last night.
Thanks for commenting, Carmen. No WAY am I taking your comment down. :)
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As Carmen said, unfortunately WordPress sends the whole post when it notifies people that you’ve put a new blog post up [Only acceptable excuses: Sudden serious illness, death, kidnapping, amnesia, lost your cell phone/home phone/laptop all at once…..Ummm that’s all I’ve got]. Which I always found a little odd for some reason. It certainly makes taking something back a little more complicated.
Speaking of Google and your ability to “pull back” emails that you didn’t want to send. I like the Gmail Goggles feature myself. If you try to send an email late at night on weekends (not sure if it’s on by default or not), they will make you answer a few *simple* math problems before you’re allowed to send. I’m sure it has saved more than a few people from embarrassing themselves, or worse.
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JM! Hi! You know what though? I have my gmail attached to my outlook & my cell — so, when you send me an email through google it goes straight to my outlook. I believe even if you try to “take it back” I still have it! I think the best thing to do (or what I do in the case of emails) is to just send a revised email. Chances are, someone’s already read it. My rule of thumb: when you put something out on the internet, its like saying it outloud. You can’t retract your voice either, so you need to deal with whatever you said accordingly.
And with that, let me apologize for the million spelling and grammatical errors in my first comment above! YIKES! But that’s what I get for responding first thing in the AM without coffee or even my contacts. Apologies!
Carmen
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Hi Carmen!
I think the “pulling an email back” thing on Gmail works like this (if someone knows better, feel free to correct). I believe it just delays it actually being sent for 30 seconds after you hit the send button. So really it’s not “pulling it back”, its just not sending it right away. So no, you can’t have my email if I don’t want to give it to you Carmen, haha!
It’s not that early here, but I didn’t even notice your spelling or grammar. Maybe I need some coffee…
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That’s the “drunk emails” feature you’re talking about – and no, I don’t think it’s on by default. You have to go and turn it on, and it is *awesome*. Of course, I’m happy when drinking, so if anything, if I sent out an email it’s going to be all smoochy and stuff. Sickening, maybe, but nothing earth-shattering.
“Yeah, yeah wolf. I know you love me. I love you too. Now go home and sleep it off already….”
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Wolf,
Some of my best posts were ones in which I get down on my knees begging forgiveness for something stupid I did, and get such a wonderful response from people who make the same mistakes.
It’s called “being human.”
michael j
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Thanks Michael. I appreciate your entirely charitable comment. Easier to forgive others than it is to forgive one’s own self sometimes though, isn’t it?
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I never got to see the offending post….but thanks for sticking the “Can’t touch this….Hammer Time” music into my brain! Arrrggggg!!! :)
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Uh oh – got yourself an ear worm out of that one, huh? I’d apologize if I could just stop laughing long enough.
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I too was able to read it via my mail but unable to comment. So, since you want to delete it… I won’t give my comment here…other than I totally understand where you were coming from with that!
Anyway, that gimmik with google mail sounds pretty hip. I know a few blogs back I told you about that dreaded email my friend meant to send me a few years ago that ended up going to one of her co-workers. It was dreadful!!!!
I don’t use work email or do any of that personal stuff!
Keep it safe-keep it real!
XOXO
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Sometimes at work it becomes necessary to correct some really bad information. And since the originating email went out to a large audience, it’s necessary to “reply-all”. When that happens, I almost always save it to the draft folder. And then I allow myself some extended time to think about it and re-read my proposed response.
If I know I’m particularly passionate (read: irritated and maybe even mad as hell), I’ll sit on it overnight. If I’m still as irritated the next day, I will send it.
Of course this didn’t just happen. It took some hard experience with some horrific missteps and regretted messages that have gone out to help me learn to be patient with email.
It’s kind of of like the old Viking credo: “FIRST, you pillage, and THEN you burn”. :)
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Long ago in a far far away land called dial up I was a subscriber the this little company called AOL. They had everything I ever needed from the internet without actually having to go to the internet. Chat rooms, games, instant messaging, chat rooms, uhhh chat rooms and this cool new thing called electronic mail. Funny thing is that even WAY back then they had a feature called “unsend”, it was fabulous! I’d type up a badly spelled sob fest of a rant, click that send button, sober up and think Oh PoooP!!! Then as long as the email hadn’t been read I could poof it back to me… whew! I used that dang feature often enough.
Ain’t it grand that Google is finally trying to recapture that fabulous feature?
Oh and I do miss that dude telling me “You’ve got mail” each time I signed on. I mean I was like a sugar junkie with pixie sticks. I’d turn on the system. Wait for all the cracks and snaps of it “warming up”, I’d click that “connect” button, go get a drink while listening to the whine, squeak, hum and whistle of the phone line connecting… Sit down with my steaming mug of hot chocolate just in time to have my little heart jump into a quick pitter patter when hearing “You’ve got mail.” Ahhh those where the days.
What were we talking about?
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I forget. But doesn’t matter, as I enjoyed this little walk down memory lane. :)
(We uses to use those AOL CDs as frisbees. Man, could you ever whip those things far!)
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I made Christmas oranments outta them. heheheeehe. =)
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It doesn’t get deleted off of Google Reader, either. Voice of experience there, too.
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Uh oh. Google Reader subscribes to blogs now?
Good thing I’m using a pseudonym, then.
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