RIM Job – Blackberry Tales – The Story of Sumit B
Names and emails (even Sumit’s) have been redacted to protect the innocent and the guilty. But you know who you are.
Who is Sumit B?
If you were to ask anyone who was employed at Blackberry on November 7th, 2011 this question there will most likely be a confused look on their face, like why do I know that na- and then they’ll jump up with a gleam in their eye and exclaim Of course I know who Sumit B. IS! He’s the guy.. the guy from the Reply-All thing!
Mistaken Reply-Alls to company-wide distribution lists have been happening pretty much since the invention of email. But Blackberry – or RIM, Research In Motion, is the company that invented mobile email, getting emails on your phone. You would think that they, of all companies, would be immune to the curse of company wide reply-all. And yet, Blackberry, like everywhere else, is staffed by humans, and humans are not perfect.
The saga of November 7th begins with a simple benign email. It was Sumit B’s first day at Blackberry and he needed to be added to some distribution lists. Easy enough for Sumit’s boss, Ed:
**From:** Ed
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:18 PM
**To:** Sumit B.; SAP CAB <SAPCAB@rim.com>; SAP Team <SAP@rim.com>; SAP Functional Team DL; OCS2007USERSDL
**Subject:** Sumit B.
Please add Sumit B. to your DLs
Now Ed there had a law degree and a PhD – in philosophy, but whatever – but that doesn’t grant the insight to send this email to the owners of those distribution lists... and NOT the members of those distribution lists.
Blackberry at the time was kindof of an “everything goes, whatever it takes” free for all. And this damn the torpedoes full steam ahead attitude was pervasive everywhere. Red tape and beuaracracy was loathed by everyone. We were busy inventing the future, can’t let some rules hold us back. Plus, noone wanted to be in the room delivering bad news to Jim Balsillie or Mike (Lazaridis) that some critical project was late because of an IT hold up.
In those days, if you needed a second monitor – heck, why not a new laptop – all you had to do was rock up to the 24/7 helpdesk in Building 4 at the corner of Philip and Columbia and ask. They’d scan your employee badge and out you walk with whatever you came for; supposedly your department got billed for it, but noone ever knew for sure. Money just wasn’t a concern – yet.
So a pesky thing like email distribution list control wasn’t going to be a blocker. If you thought YOUR team DL needed to receive emails from some OTHER DL, you sent in a ticket and your DL was added to the other DL’s recipient list no questions asked. In fact depending on who you were in the pecking order and what IT permissions you had, you could just do it yourself. So, depending on what DLs were added as recipients to what other DLs, and to what DLs an email were sent to, you could be sending to quite a few individuals.
Blackberry at the time had 19,000 employees. The four lists that Ed sent that email to had thousands of people on them. Everyone I knew in the engineering division got that email. What the hell is OCS2007 and why was I getting this email? (the dist. lists are now “EVERYONE”)
Seven minutes later Syed just wanted to let Ed know of his error:
**From:** Syed
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:25 PM
**To:** Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
Hi I'm wrong syed
Syed G.
Bryan and Carl saw what was about to happen and tried to put their fingers in the dike. By reply-alling but sending to the DLs via bcc, they’d get their msgs to the top of everyone’s inboxes “occluding” the first ones:
**From:** Bryan
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:26 PM
**To:** Ed; Sumit B.
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
Removing all DLs by BCC.
From: Carl
Sent: Monday, November 7, 2011 4:26 PM
To: Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
Subject: Re: Sumit B.
\-removing OCS 2007 users
Ok, Bryan was trying to help, Carl was just looking out for his own. Fuck those SAP guys.
But it was too late. By now Blackberry phones across the Waterloo RIM campus and around the world were vibrating and beeping exclaiming the joyous arrival of Sumit B.:
**From:** Sumit S.
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:27 PM
**To:** Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
I'm wrong Sumit J :)
**From:** YanZ
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:27 PM
**To:** Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
Me too. I'm wrong Yan.
**From:** VesaK
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:29 PM
**To:** Sumit S.; Syed G.; Ed; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
I am wrong everything.
**From:** MichaelM
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:27 PM
**To:** Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
I don't think this is for me.
Some thought if they could.. just.. get through to everyone they could get it to stop:
**From:** FrancesL
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:29 PM
**To:** YanZ; Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
Let's not start this...
Stop replying to all!!
You are spamming 100's of people.
**From:** MonicaC
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:32 PM
**To:** YanZ; Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
Hi there, you are copying half of the company J
**From:** NickS
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:33 PM
**To:** KennyC; Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** \*\*\* STOP REPLYING \*\*\* Sumit B.
Clearly an error. Please stop replying to all.
Randy knows to bcc properly and tells it like it is:
**From:** RandyB
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:32 PM
**To:** YanZ; Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
STOP THE INSANITY!
You can find DL owners in the GAL!!!!!
I find it hard to believe this is the first time any of you have used Outlook before. Have some common courtesy, please!
Jason at the IT desk does it right too, but Im not exactly sure it helps anything:
**From:** IT Service Desk <itservicedesk@rim.com>
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:35 PM
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
This email thread was sent to the wrong DL in error by the original user. Please disregard the thread.
-Jason
Blackberry Hub (the inbox on Blackberries) didn’t “thread” conversations like Outlook did, the latest just popped to the top of your inbox. Now the people who haven’t been paying attention for the last couple of hours minutes get involved as they look at the top msg on their devices... even Kenny from the future.
From: KennyC
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2011 05:25 PM
To: Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
Subject: Re: Sumit B.
I have no idea why this mail was sent to me either.
**From:** AJ
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:32 PM
**To:** KennyC; Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
I too am confused...
A.J.
Sent from my BlackBerry Torch
I found out the next day, having lunch with a friend in the IT department, the IT peeps had seen the spike in traffic and been on top of it after the first few replies were sent to ten thousand mailboxes. They had the Exchange folks put a rule in place that /dev/null’d any message with Sumit B’s name in it. But because the Blackberry infrastructure pushed emails to devices, there was no way to claw it back unlike with traditional mailbox services. So the first dozen responses from Blackberry mobiles squeaked through before the Exchange rule was put in place – and then were themselves pushed to everyone’s Blackberry mobile.
The damage trickled in for the next hour or so.
**From:** PaulG
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:38 PM
**To:** Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
Is this a virus? Not again!!!!!
**From:** StanJ
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:41 PM
**To:** RickyG; VesaK; Sumit S.; Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
STOP THIS!!!!!!!!!
**From:** HsiaoP
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:41 PM
**To:** StanJ; RickyG; VesaK; Sumit S.; Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
Please stop this!!!
**From:** AnnH
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:40 PM
**To:** ElayneC; KennyC; Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
Je suis confus?
Some people just couldn’t help but be smartasses:
**From:** AsifN
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:40 PM
**To:** MiguelH; VesaK; Sumit S.; Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
I am the right Asif.
From: MiguelH
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2011 5:30 PM
To: VesaK; Sumit S.; Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
Subject: Re: Sumit B.
I just thought I'd follow suit.
Hey everybody. What's up.
MiguelH
Others turned to social commentary:
**From:** KenD
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:38 PM
**To:** MiguelH; VesaK; Sumit S.; Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
This activity is par for the course today. :(
**From:** DanielS
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:39 PM
**To:** EdF; VesaK; Sumit S.; Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
Morons
**From:** JustinM
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:40 PM
**To:** SteveP; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
Epic fail...
Sent from my BB
**From:** TonyaK
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:40 PM
**To:** StefanC; NiravR; Syed G.; Ed; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
Unsubscribe please
.. while others just want to watch the world burn:
**From:** NathanH
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:38 PM
**To:** Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
BUMP!
**From:** MizaelM
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:39 PM
**To:** BarbM; MichaelS; YanZ; Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
Bump! Please don't reply to all
Meanwhile Craig, having seen that they had gotten the Asif, Sumit, Vesa and Yan situations sorted out, wanted to clarify:
**From:** CraigG
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:43 PM
**To:** YanZ; Syed G.; Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
While I am the best Craig in the place I think I might be wrong as well. But still right.
At 4:43, the last email BINGED its way into everyone’s inbox. But not before:
**From:** Mike Lazaridis <MLazaridis@rim.com>
**Sent:** Monday, November 7, 2011 4:40 PM
**To:** Ed; Sumit B.; EVERYONE
**Subject:** Re: Sumit B.
Urgent,
Please remove me from this DL.
Mike Lazaridis
CEO
Mambella’s Italian Deli and Cafe was one of the few commercial tenants in the vicinity of Columbia and Albert Streets in Waterloo that wasn’t Research in Motion. Being so convenient to some seven thousand RIM employees, it was a popular RIM lunch spot. The Mambella’s staff were always overhearing the latest “RIM news” being discussed while they made paninis.
The next day the letter sign outside read:
Yeah, but did Sumit B. ever get added to those DLs?
Sumit B. Eats For Free at Mambella’s
Ed got his MBA, did some time on Wall Street and now teaches at Conestoga College. Sumit B. works in hi-tech still and very obviously has gone to great lengths to expunge all mention of his tenure at RIM from his LinkedIn profile because I’m sure he gets asked “say.. did you ever happen to work at Blackberry...” quite a bit.
And the rest of us got laid off. But we still tell the tale of the day Sumit B came to Research In Motion.
