File this under "innovations in bad management."

Also, people must stop using inept management tactics like the "red bomb." This is when a senior guy wants to tell you something, but instead of calling you and risking that you'll answer the phone and therefore be able to ask a question, (like What's the deadline?), he goes directly into the voice mail system to leave you a message.

It's a red bomb because you get the red light on your phone that means you have a voice mail, and a bomb because you know only someone internally can do it, and it must be a senior guy because no one else would do it. If you're sitting at your desk and all of a sudden you have a voice mail, and you know your phone hasn't rung, you've just been nailed by a red bomb.

Where we worked, it was called stealthing and it was just as annoying.

My investment-banking brother says... [Brazen Careerist]