There's an alarming new trend in the workplace- and that is the increasing frequency of frivolous, inane and disconcerting emails sent to all staff. These emails include all manner of trivial, non-work related content. Over the last couple of weeks I've received emails about:

• attending demonstration action to protest against government decisions (which one might think slightly incongruous when you work in the public sector)
• invitations to attend a staff poetry competition
• requests to borrow sundry items such as tape measures

What gets me about these emails (aside from the obvious annoyance at the constant spamming) is why these people would send out an email, to ALL STAFF, which obviously paints yourself as a slacker with nothing better to do with your time? Sure, we all surf the net or send frivolous emails from time to time, but you don't include the Chief Executive and the management team in the address list when you do.

To wit:

Fancy being a Christmas Pixie?

I am frantically looking for some more Chistmas Pixie’s to help us this weekend with the decorating and so I thought before I call Student Job Search I might ask around here.

Open to anyone over 18 who doesn’t mind a bit of frantic and interesting work unloading a 20ft container filled with decorations, “fluffing” trees (yes that is the technical term) and then affixing them strategically to walls, railings and ceilings etc. It is a bit physical but nothing overly strenuous.

Pixie's? Fluffing? Really?