I got a doozy of a webmaster@uakron.edu email recently. The sole text consisted of these words that I unfortunatly quote:
“Do you happen too have a retard level?”
The page they had been on referenced a “fundamentals of…” program – so, roughly translated they were likely looking for an even more remedial approach to the subject.
I’m a fast thinker and a fast typist, but this one took me a while.
In the end, I ignored the horrible and crude language and just did my damn job. I assumed they didn’t know any better and responded by asking them to clarify what they were looking for so that I could route them to the appropiate department or resources.
They never got back to me and I’m hoping that maybe they did realize that what they said was offensive – to basically every decent human being – and didn’t expect that a real human would be behind that form.
But there was one there. And he did his job, even if it broke him a little.
I am tired of the willful ignorance and the cruelty.