Eradicating 'Reply All'

In 2008, Gustavo Reveles, a Navy veteran deep into his two-decade career at the U.S. Border Patrol, got an e-mail from a colleague. He shot off a reply that happened to contain the words “kiss” and “ass”—in that order. He was soon fired for sending an “offensive and against agency policy” e-mail. When Reveles filed a lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano this year, citing discrimination, his attorney laid out an unusual part of his defense, and one that corporate workers everywhere will sympathize with: “Plaintiff inadvertently hit the ‘Reply All’ icon.”

Stories like Reveles’s are commonplace—office dwellers dumbly blasting out crude or embarrassing messages to colleagues across entire e-mail systems. Perhaps no single office staple has stoked such employee fear, posed such a danger to intellectual property, and created such potential for workplace humiliation.