Now that we’re doing some OT at work, people need to be fed at dinner time. When nearly the entire team is staying late, they usually just have a big communal dinner with big serving trays of food. When the numbers are smaller, it’s possible to have individual choices from one or two restaurants.
When we’re given a choice, a team wide e-mail is sent out with the options. You’re supposed to send your choice back to the production coordinator. Unfortunately, there are two buttons one can click when answering back: “Reply” and “Reply All”. Yes, the dreaded “Reply All”.
Last year, there was a guy who sat behind me, a senior SE with the last name Kester. Out of the entire team, I believe he hit the “Reply All” button more than anyone when ordering food. One time, I heard him say “oh crap” and when I turned around, he had his head on his desk. My new mail notification tone went off that second and I saw he had sent out his dinner order to the entire team of over 100 people.
It became quite amusing each time he did it and we called such an act a “Kester” from then on. Doing a “Kester” invariably sets you up for ridicule. People will reply to the person who did the gaffe with various responses:
“Oh that’s a good choice, I had that last week.”
“Hmmm… I was undecided until I read your e-mail. Thanks!”
“Sounds delicious!”
There’s nothing like over a dozen messages in your inbox, all commenting on what you’re about to eat in two hours. The worst are the ones where someone makes requests on the meal like hold the lettuce, no mayo, crusts cut off, double the veggies, replace potatoes with corn, and the like. People then think, wow, that’s a diva right there.
This year, it took a whole two weeks before someone did a “Kester”. It turned out to be an artist friend of mine who wanted the beef dip. The next “Kester” also happened to be another beef dip order but several days later. Then it was a “Kester” where a request was made to hold the tomato on a burger.
As you can tell, it doesn’t take much to amuse me.