Syracuse University parking email chain is the group chat nobody wanted

The Syracuse University student population is dealing with a crisis of massive proportions.

Was there a snafu with everyone’s grades on MySlice? Did everyone’s tuition get doubled? Did a building literally crumble to the ground?

No, we got an email about parking.

Now the university population is in a game of “reply all.”

For those who haven’t checked their syr.edu email, this is what the email looks like, and be ready to press “mark all as read.”

It’s like that time when you weren’t able to leave group chats and your friends would spam text you, except every single student who was matriculated at SU last year is involved.

Honestly, it’s not even a game of “reply all,” because nobody is pressing reply all. Well, I assume nobody is; if you are you’re a horrible human being and I will sign you up for multiple spam services.

The reality is this: If you reply to a listserv, it automatically replies to everyone.

C’mon people, we should know this by now. Have you not been in a club looking for new members and multiple people respond to be taken off the listserv? I know because I have been in a club seeing those emails, run a club receiving those emails and sent the emails asking to be taken off the listserv — only to sign up again the next week.

There are several types of people that reply all, and they have shown themselves in this situation.

The people asking to be taken off the listserv

Those people have made it abundantly clear that they graduated. I didn’t know they expected to be out of the system so quickly, but in SU’s defense, we didn’t think you would graduate on time.

What doesn’t make sense about the people asking to be taken off the listserv is that there is an unsubscribe button.  Here’s a picture of where it is, you fools.

Next time, instead of continuing a chain of blindly responding to 20,000 people, how about you take 10 seconds to use your eyes and look rather than assume someone will get the message and specifically take your email address off the list.

The people saying “stop responding”

They’re just as bad because I’m still getting the emails. It’s as if a bunch of people were punching me in the face and you came over and punched me in the face to try to get them to stop. You’re still not helping.

It’s sad, because we’re all at a great institution of higher learning. And, before I get an email saying, “I do not attend this university anymore,” we all have had the opportunity to learn at SU, and clearly it does not matter.

The people with good intentions

They mean well, but they’re not helping. These people try to give instructions to the public on the listservs. While their attempts are admirable, they are futile and just add to the problem.

If people cared, or even paid attention, they would have understood the necessary actions to solve their issue. Most of the responses are from students who a) aren’t looking at all the emails saying “stop replying to this listserv” or b) don’t have enough self-restraint not to whine about the problem to the entire student body.

I have participated in many different group-trust/team-building exercises, and none are more difficult than getting people to not say something. Our instinct is to make our voices heard. Normally I encourage everyone to voice their opinion, but not to the point when I have to turn my phone off vibrate.

If we can’t deal with a simple email, how are we supposed to deal with anything else this university throws at us? We need to learn how to work together, and sometimes that involves getting loud, while other times it involves staying quiet.

As practice, I say we all reply to Pete Sala’s next email with what we want fixed on campus.

I leave you all with a quote from two great generals — Thucydides of Athens, and Chancellor Kent Syverud of Syracuse.

“Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most.”

“Hello, Parking Services? I would like to be taken off the email thingamabob that I keep getting.”

Josh Feinblatt is a junior television, radio, film major. He usually puts his email in this end part, but not today. He isn’t fielding any of your emails this week, and he knows you’re too lazy to look at any of his past columns to find it. He can be reached on Twitter @joshfeinblatt.