Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Email etiquette

I'd like to complain about email etiquette in the workplace. There are a few things I'd like to ban from email conversational dialect and some general rules I've come up with for communication via email. And even though no one cares, I'd like to share them:

1. Replying to emails with one-word answers. In the case of someone I work with, I often ask multiple questions in an email. The response? "Yes." Spare me. "Yes" is is not helpful. It only leads me to more questions.

2. Asking questions about emails you are awaiting when the answer is already sitting in your inbox. Nothing irritates me more than when people do not read through all of their emails before they chastise me for something they believe "wasn't done" or "wasn't sent to them." Now I understand calling someone if you haven't had a chance to look at your email in a while or perhaps you're anxiously awaiting a document and need to check if your email is working... HOWEVER, when you E-MAIL someone your anxiety attack, I know you're sitting in front of your computer and should just take the time to check your in-box. LAZY.

3. When documents are sent to you for editing or approval - OPEN THEM. READ THEM. and EDIT THEM. In a timely fashion, please.

4. Ignoring emails. When is it ever OK to ignore an email with important questions in it, that are pertinent to getting a job done? Let me check...that's right, it's NOT!

And finally 5. Pretending you did not get them. That is even worse, because you are holding up someone's productivity.

But since most of this is probably foreign to people who actually use proper email etiquette, and really, I've only made this post a rant about one individual that I have to email and it doesn't apply to the rest of you, I suppose I sound like a crazy person. Do I? What else should I mention?

Yes.
Does anyone know if LMS has posted on email etiquette yet?

Don't know, I didn't get that one.

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