“It’s fine, I just wish they’d follow the process, ” I sighed. “I was able to get the email out before lunch, so it’s off my plate now.“
The wind blew, causing a swirl of crunchy leaves to dance across the path. I took a deep breath of the crisp autumn air, and exhaled slowly. Dark clouds were approaching, but the sun was still visible overhead and I could feel its warmth pour over me as if it was trying to comfort me.
“Have you told them they aren’t following the process? Maybe they just don’t know,” Nancy inquired, trying to give our co-workers the benefit of the doubt.
“Of course! I sent them over the documentation, and explained everything before. I know they felt really bad about this last minute request. I was able to move some things around, so it’s not a big deal. I was a little stressed over it, but it always helps to get outside and walk during lunch,” I said as I pulled out my phone to check the time and see how many steps I took during my lunch break.
Before I was able to check my steps, I noticed the bright red notification badge on the Slack icon increase from 5 to 6 messages. Now 7. My anxiety incrementally increased in tandem with the the number of notifications. I opened Slack.
Randy: Hey.
Randy: I think there might be a problem.
Randy: With that email we sent earlier.
Randy: Can you take a look?
Randy: Where are you?
Randy: I’m at your desk.
Randy: I guess you’re at lunch…
I took another deep breath and held onto it for a few moments before slowly releasing it.
“Another reason why rushed emails are a bad idea, ” I mumbled while opening the Gmail app to check my tests for what could have possibly gone wrong.
Me: Yeah, I’m outside walking. What’s wrong? I’m looking at the tests I sent to myself and I’m not noticing anything obvious?
Randy: It’s the button. We got a few replies saying it’s linking to example.com, but it’s working fine for me. Idk.
I click the button in my Gmail test, and it redirects exactly as I expected.
Me: Yeah, I’m not noticing an issue. I’m on my way in. I’ll check it as soon as I get back to my desk.
“What’s wrong?” Nancy asked.
“I don’t know. Something with the button, but it seems fine to me. Probably nothing, but I’m going to go check it out.”
I rushed back to my desk. My department was still deserted, the lights switched off. The only signs of life being the distant laughs and chatter pluming up the stairs from the cafe downstairs while everyone finished up their lunch breaks.
The glow of my screen illuminated my face like a specter while I cracked open my editor to investigate. My mouth dropped open in horror as I gasped, “it’s a… a…“
Suddenly the lights switched on, “it’s a what!?” I jumped as my manager cut through the silence like a knife.
“It’s a ghost… ” I said quietly as I winced while eyes adjusted to the sudden change in lighting.
“What are you even talking about?” My manager laughed as the rest of my team filtered back to their desks.
“The button. In the email we sent earlier. There’s some markup that helps our buttons to look the same in Outlook as it does in other email clients. But it’s hidden everywhere else. Like a… ghost… We forgot to update the link. So people using Outlook are being linked to example.com.” I explained frantically.
And from that day forward I was never the same. I learned that emails in Outlook don’t need to look exactly the same as every other email client, as long as they are functional and get the message across.
