One of the ominous/fun (take your pick) things about Microsoft Outlook is the ability to track what happens to an email you send.
For instance, I sent this apparently effective email to Cooper Firearms a while back during the late unpleasantness. I got a very quick response from Dan Pickett. However, I also cc’d Dan Cooper himself, and, well, I just now received this:
_____________________________________________
From: Dan CooperSent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 9:56 AM
To: David [redacted]
Subject: Not read: Canceling my Cooper dreams
Your message was deleted without being read on Thursday, January 29, 2009 9:55:32 AM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada).
I don’t really mind. I think he got the message, don’t you?
(incidentally, I told Dan Pickett after he responded to my email that I was satisfied and would resume lusting after Cooper rifles and making plans to buy several. I’m true to my word — I’m currently focusing for obvious reasons on getting a few more paperless rifles, but I’m pretty close to being done with that and will turn to saving for my first Cooper.)
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Not that I’m defending the guy, but that could just be IT cleaning up the old, left over data after Dan’s exit.
This is in fact not Outlook’s doing but their mail server, which was apparently ordered to indeed send out these messages when the account was deleted (or was not told not to send them).
Wouldn’t that demonstrate, rather, that he’s still there, reading mail, and that it’s Business As Usual?
(It’s my sneaking suspicion is that nothing actually *changed* other than some public relations.)
I think either scenario (automatic deletion by machine or conscious deletion by a human) would result in the reply I received. However, I suspect Unix-Jedi is closer to the truth of the matter.
As I’ve said before, whether or not he’s still there (it’s his company, after all) is of no real importance to me. It’s that he’s no longer the public face of the company, and no longer its president, that’s important. I’m sure he’s still a director, shareholder, etc. — but he’s a lot quieter these days, n’est-ce pas?
I’m 90% sure you can read the message in the preview pane on outlook and delete it (assuming the recipient has outlook), and it will come back to the sender as deleted w/o being read. Which would make it possible but not highly likely that it was read.