[daviddbreadman]

I am an outsider here. No one ever responds to what I say but here is the bottom line. I know neither party. You cannot take a private email literally. You have no idea of the intention of the writer. And for any person to post a private email publicly is done so in a biased manner to forward their own agenda. I say this without agreeing or disagreeing with the consensus take on the email as proffered here. As a matter of point, its inappropriate and misleading. One has no idea what is in the head of the person and the motives of the person typing the email at the time it was typed.

A short story: I work at an office where instant messages are monitored by a female worker for content. A close male friend of mine and I were joking about an episode of "The Apprentice" a few years ago. There happened to be a lot of female bickering in that particular episode. This female "monitor" not knowing my relationship with him and our joking manner took great offense when I (truly) jokingly typed to him that "women don't belong in the workforce" and she took me literally as an outside observer.

Separately, after returning from the potty and typing to him that I was so impressed with my creation that I had the duty to and decided to leave it for the next caller, did I really do this even though I typed it?? Only I know.