The Great Email Mirage: How a Missing Function Sparked a Corporate Crisis

In this humorous recount from "The Daily WTF," the author shares a story of a corporate emergency surrounding the failure of an application to send nightly reports via email—a function that hadn't actually worked at all in over 16 months. Initially, panic ensues when the CEO realizes he hasn't received the reports, prompting a frantic investigation. The employee, Branon, quickly discovers that the email sending function had a glaring oversight: it didn't contain any code to send emails. Ironically, after the problem is fixed, the company receives new complaints about the frequency of reports, highlighting the absurdity of the situation where everyone had been content with accessing the reports on their own for over a year.

Key Points:

• Branon's boss panics over missing nightly reports emailed to staff, including the CEO.
• Investigation reveals that the email function had not been implemented at all for 16 months.
• Despite the longstanding issue, the company labeled the report process as the most critical task, halting other work.
• After fixing the issue, employees express a desire to reduce email frequency, indicating long-term dissatisfaction with the original process.
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