Cussin Bills

I have been accused by Charlene of trying to get Ronnie Pender fired. Here is the email I sent, along with the sequence of events leading up to it:

A whois check of the email domain of the attached email indicated you were the reportable person to contact. If not, please let me know so I can take action to direct this to the correct office.

I have received the attached SPAM from one of your employees. Please try to prevent this from occurring again. My attendance at a nude photographic session is not likely, and the use of your corporate email for this purpose I would think would not be in your acceptable use policy.

Ronnie Pender sent an email to a bunch of people on a corporate email account, signed as the regional manager of the company:

Since the email was sent to a list of over 20 people, Outlook classified it as spam. This has been mentioned as a problem in paddlers meeting by both me and Mike Boone (I believe it was Mike)

In the email, he invited me to a premiere of LVM at a local bar and said there would be two people there from companies like Necky to participate in nude photographic sessions. OK, models for companies sometimes do that. I am now told that "everyone knows that LVM stuff is written tongue in cheek". Well, not everyone is a White Water Paddler and knows this, or even what LVM is. I did not, and others that I asked did not either. I could only rely on the wording in the message.

To me this sounded like a commercial event, being from a regional sales manager, and offering to sell something called LVM. Now, please understand that this was also sent last month, referring to LVM #9 , by Charlene. I asked her at the time what it was about, but I received no reply from her. Now, a message for LVM #10 comes this month.

This month, The email indicated that he had "asked Charlene for her list of all the local paddlers that might want to come to Cussin Bill’s in St. Andrews". I sent an email to Charlene asking her not to release my address to people outside the Paddlers.

I sent an email to Ronnie Pender asking him to what this in reference, and received no response. I sent an email asking to be removed from his list, and received another copy of the same email as before, though he did forward my removal request to Charlene so I know he received it.

Now, I am thinking this is a real spam message, because 1) I had no clue as to who the person sending the message was, 2) I had no clue as to what was being sold, 3) it was signed by a regional sales manager of a legitimate company, 4) on a corporate email account complete with graphic logo, 5) it was unsolicited and a request to stop it had been ignored, 6) it was being sent to sell something at a local bar including nude photography.

Based on those facts, I sent the standard SPAM complaint to the webmaster of the domain which hosted the email account:

A whois check of the email domain of the attached email indicated you were the reportable person to contact. If not, please let me know so I can take action to direct this to the correct office.

I have received the attached SPAAM from one of your employees. Please try to prevent this from occurring again. My attendance at a nude photographic session is not likely, and the use of your corporate email for this purpose I would think would not in your acceptable use policy.

I apologize to all his friends, but I fight spam everyday, and when I get home and find over 100 spam messages a day in my various inboxes, I am not in a mood see myself added to lists that refuse to honor requests to be removed from them.

Now, given all that, I fail to see where I was in any way betraying anyone, nor can I see in any interpretation of that wording where I asked for any termination of Ronnie's employment. If that were the case, I would not have sent it to the Webmaster, but to the Human Resources department. To be sure, companies do take this seriously, since the employee makes the company liable for actions taken in using company email messages and signing the message as an employee of the company, and for other actions ensuing from the use of their corporate email accounts, so it is not inconceivable that he was told not to do it again. I am not privy to the private discussions that may have taken place between Ronnie Pender and his employer, but no request for termination has to date been made by me.

Notice,
Please do not use the addresses on this list without contacting me or that person, themselves asking permission. This list was used for people interested in the paddling community. I was misled by Steve Kelsay of the Palmetto Paddlers since he solicited my help in informing him of paddler events locally, so he could put them on a website he administrates supposedly for paddler interests.
Well Steve asked to be taken off this list and also took offense at the idea of the notice and its wording even though we all know, LVM's Ads and such are always tongue in cheek.
Well Steve couldn't leave it at that and sent a nasty email to my Friend Ronnie's work and attempted to get him fired. I don't appreciate the betrayal in trust that Steve did with me, or the lie he told when he said he wanted the information for a paddler website. I feel very used and am deeply hurt over the whole thing --I got my friend in trouble for caring about unifying the divided Columbia paddling community....I trusted Steve Kelsay when he asked for information.
These type of people do the most to destroy paddling communities unity, they create apathy and make it hard to get volunteers to do thankless jobs or even worse they make it difficult for clubs or organizations of great people to get members.
So much for Monday and Tuesday of this week and Christmas cheer, goodwill towards all men.
Thanks for your understanding. I'm sorry if anyone else was offended--or upset.

In response, I sent the following email to Charlene after she distributed That Email:

Either Ronnie, you, or both are enhancing the facts. I sent a standard spam complaint to the webmaster after attempting twice to find out what the emails were about, one to you last month with no response and one to Ronnie, also with no response except a second mailing. Since he used his corporate email account, they are liable for any actions that ensue from that email, which is why they take it seriously. Hopefully that point has been made.

If either of you perceived that complaint as an attempt to get him fired, It was not. Unless he had been warned several time previously or was otherwise in trouble with his company, these complaints are normally filed in the webmaster's desk unless it results in other complaints.

However, if I were to send them the copy of the email that you published and ask them to investigate it, it most probably would get him canned to prevent their own liability, unless he can substantiate the facts. (The truth is the ultimate defense). Since my email cannot in any way be considered to be such a request, either he or you have enhanced the problem.

My only concern was to get off the email list. You are making this a personal attack, and I am not amused. Let's stop this thing before it gets really serious.

Charlene responded with an email indicating that she was not feeling well and wanted no further contact with me. I am not reprinting it here because of the medical nature of the content. I have complied with her request for no further contact, so long as the matter is not brought up again.