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Thursday, September 02, 2010
!!Email Pet Peeves!!

by hbrinkman on sxc.hu 
OK, I'm not the official e-mail police or anything. And I have NOT read E-Mail: A Write It Well Guide by Janis Fisher Chan. But I do get enough of them everyday to know what is annoying. These are my Email Pet Peeves.

1. Overuse of the IMPORTANT flag. Yes, I know you need something right away. So do the other thirty people that just emailed me. Yes, I know you are in a panic. So am I, from the thirty other people that need something right away.

Here is the rule: The more you use it, the less impact it gets. The less you use it, the more impact it gets. I recommend using it maybe a few times a year. That way when someone sees you yelling fire, they are more likely to help you out rather than decide it's time to grab a coffee before reading your email.

2. CC'ing someone on an email is not an assignment or delegation. That is what the To: field is for. CC is for people who are not directly involved and do not have to act or reply. CC is just keeping someone informed. For instance a direct report CC's me on an exchange they are having with another manager. I don't need to do anything. It's a courtesy to let me know they are working together and lets me monitor what is being asked of my direct report.

Here is the rule: People in the To: field must do. People in the CC field only see.

3. Don't BCC someone's boss. Yeah, I know the BCC field had a bad time when people were using it to tattle on others and managers were demanding that their direct reports BCC them on everything. But ultimately we all learned our lesson when the BCC'er pulled a meat head and replied to all, exposing the secret spy ring. Since then managers have learned that they must trust the people they place responsibility with and the spy game has been put on ice. BCC is just for non disclosure of lists. Lets say I want to tell a bunch of people that I lost my phone. But those people don't necessarily know each other and I should not be exposing their email addresses to one another. What do I do? That's right! I put myself in the To: field and I BCC everyone else. That way, they know that I BCC's them and probably a whole bunch of other people too.

Here is the rule: Either BCC everyone or no one. That is, never use BCC in conjunction with the To: or CC: fields. You should be the only contact in the To: field. If you really want to rat someone out, just forward the sent version of the message. That way you at least won't die from a "reply all" attack or tagged a relic of the cold war.

OK, so what are your email Pet Peeves?

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