Computer stories seem popular.
I have heard a couple of versions of this, but the most recent was from my brother who works on a huge network for a big publishing group.

They recently started migrating everything to 'the cloud', which included moving from Exchange servers to web based mail.

All users are told as from Monday, they will be accessing mails differently. No need to do anything, all mailboxes will be backed up and migrated. Lovely.

Big cheese calls him up on Monday morning. "All my emails have gone".

"Um, ok. I can see your mailbox. Everything was moved, what exactly is it you're missing?"

"All the ones I archived. There are thousands of them, 6 years worth"

"Archived? What do you mean?"

"After I read them, I hit delete, and they all go to the 'deleted items' folder. I keep them all there so I know which ones I have dealt with".

"Um, I have some bad news then".
(username failed moderation, Fri 31 Aug 2012, 12:50, 7 replies)

This is why I like working for a company where the management were once lowly peons like me.
None of that shit here. Just "oh fuck we've kippaxed the entire version control archive" instead.
( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Fri 31 Aug 2012, 13:07, closed)

You have to stop for just a second
and ask who really fucked up, but I'm inclined to say it was the big cheese.

It's not like delete is some obscure phrase.

On the other hand, they immediately deleted the mailboxes, having only backed up the non-deleted messages. Maybe they should have waited a few days.
(username failed moderation, Fri 31 Aug 2012, 13:14, closed)

You could argue that the deleted items folder is a mailbox, because it basically is, so they implied they'd be backing up the deleted stuff too.
But I'm more inclined to say the boss was at fault, seeing as there was likely an archived items folder too.
( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Fri 31 Aug 2012, 13:19, closed)

It's pretty common to use "deleted items" as just another folder.
Anyone migrating an enterprise ought to know that. It's ITs job to protect users from themselves also, as far as technology is concerned.
Doesn't stop the Boss being an idiot, but I'd expect the IT staff responsible to be given a good talking to also. Certainly a black mark on the record if they couldn't get all the email back.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Fri 31 Aug 2012, 17:09, closed)

What does 'kippaxed' mean?
I googled it, but I'm not sure it yielded a useful result? Does it have anything to do with the village in Yorkshire?
(SimianKid internet faffer, Fri 31 Aug 2012, 17:01, closed)

Yeah, it basically means fucked.

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Fri 31 Aug 2012, 17:55, closed)

I migrated a place to Microsoft Online Services (now Office365) and you don't lose the deleted items.
The Deleted items folder is stored in the mailbox indefinitely, unless you set some auto-delete rules in Exchange (but they'd delete anyway). The other option is to find the local cache of the profile and access the items there.

I also had a big cheese who used "deleted items" as a filing system... and he was fine.
(mmmm curry doesn't really understand this sig lark, Fri 31 Aug 2012, 18:21, closed)