How do I retract ("unsend") a sent Lotus 6.5 email? PLEASE HELP!!! 1

[shortylong]

Hello folks:
I inadvertently sent an email out to the wrong group of persons early this morning using Lotus Notes 6.5. The recipients probably won't know about this until 6 AM, Tuesday, Jan. 17.

I know that Microsoft Outlook has a feature that enables one to "unsend" inadvertent messages. After the sender "unsends" the email, the unintended recipients receive a blank message. Does Lotus Notes 6.5 have this feature?

It is very important that I retract this email soon, at the latest before Tuesday 6 AM. PLEASE HELP!!

 

[johncurtis]

You can't retract a mail in Notes.

You could try asking a friendly mail admin to delete the messages before the recipients open them.

John

It said Windows 2000 or better, so I bought a Mac

 

[shortylong]

Thanks John. One of the IT folks was here today and forwarded my email to the Administrator here. Unfortunately, she wouldn't give me the Admin's name. She said that he or she gets here early tomorrow. I hope that's true. The bad part is that I don't know whether any of the recipients will access their email remotely before tomorrow.

 

[shortylong]

One of the e-mail recipients showed up. By the time I got to talk with her, she had already read and deleted the message, and emptied it from the trash folder.

She said that she didn't think it was a big deal, but she's an attorney here, and who believes what they say. We'll see what happens tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm still going to try to find a way.

I'm thinking about trying to find a way to locate the Administrator's name or home info, but I'm drawing a blank.

 

[BFOJ]

Depending on your company's privacy policy, the Administrator may not be able to view nor delete message in a recipients database without just cause, without some red tape. Don't want to discourage you, but that may be the reality, it is with my company.

 

[shortylong]

The administrator here didn't say that he required authorization: he just said that it would be impossible to retract the message, period. I actually had a grown man stand in front of me and tell me that he was too incompetent to do his job, meaning that I would just have to suffer the consequences for it.

I told him that I had been consulting all weekend with computer experts who said that he would be able to retract the message. He suggested that I have "my experts" tell him how to retract the Notes message, because he didn't know how to and didn't believe that it could be done.

WELL, EXPERTS? What do I tell this guy?

 

[johncurtis]

He's right in a way, he can't retract the message. However, a mail admin can go into the recipients' mail databases and delete the mails (if allowed, as BFOJ correctly says).

John

It said Windows 2000 or better, so I bought a Mac

 

[shortylong]

You guys were right - it was a problem of authority.

The "administrator" I was talking to was actually a contractor, not a federal employee. I wish that they could have told me at 7 AM that they were just contractors, because I could have gotten the authority from someone with actual pull around here. But no. Instead of just telling me that they lacked authority to do what I asked, these contractors just kept telling me that they "couldn't do it," probably because they did not want to get in over their little contractor heads.

Little did this so-called administrator know that I could have easily gotten the authority to have them take care of this situation. But now it's really already too late.

And they say they have to privatize everything because government workers are supposedly so incompetent and lazy. From Iraq to Washington, DC, this is yet another example of unconcerned contractors, without a stake in the actual workings of government, being a damn nuisance, being more bureaucratic than the "Washington bureaucrats" and screwing things up for everyone else in the process.

 

[Mike2287]

Bet it was the contractor that hit the send button to.

 

[BFOJ]

shortylong,

You shouldn't be so hard on the contractors, they're just trying to survive like the rest of us, have families to feed. Remember, they don't have the job security that you may have in the Federal Government. I commend the contractors who work along side Government employees and in most cases do similar work but probably don't get the benefits. I applaud their efforts, particularly in Iraq.

p.s. I'm a retiring Federal employee.

 

[shortylong]

You're right, Mike 2287.

That was a completely unfair rant. I commend all of the contractors out there, who are doing a good job and catching a bad break from the media. The government keeps getting smaller and less inclusive and it's not certainly not the contractors making that decision.

When I asked those folks whether policy or technology restrictions prevented them from getting that email, I do wish they would have said that it was a policy problem (solvable) and not a technical restriction.

Nevertheless, it was my screw-up from the beginning, and I've got to face the music.

 

[shortylong]

BFOJ and johncurtis - thanks for the tips along the way.
I wish you guys and Mike 2287 worked here!!!
Let me know if you're looking for a gig with a large Washington, DC Federal agency. There's a salary cap at around $150,000 but the benefits are superb. I would be more than happy to pass you guys' resumes along.

 

[BFOJ]

I'll pass, I'm retiring from the Federal Government in a few weeks.

 

[shortylong]

Congrats BFOJ -