Email etiquette

[Jennasis]

The subject line is not where you type your email!

I have to deal with someone where I work who insists (even after being corrected) on typing the body of their email in the subject line. Of course, because you can only fit so much there, it always gets cut off. I thought this was just an isolated issue but my DH, who is an IT professional, says people he works with do it all the time too, despite being corrected. The person I'm dealing with is an administrative assistant no less!

What email etiquette shenanigoats drive you insane?

 

[Happy Snowman]

Weird. Trying to understand why she thinks that is a good idea???? Maybe IT can turn off her subject line so she has to type in the body???

The "forward this to 10 friend or you will die" emails get me. I have an aunt that sends all of those off to everyone. I smile as I hit delete .

 

[Kogo Shuko]

TYPING IN ALL CAPS drives me up the wall. I've been using the internet as a means of communication for well over a decade, and at this point, I read those words as YELLING. It hurts. lol

 

[Saimaeve]

I will sometimes use the subject line as a body.

Occasionally I am in a meeting with other coworkers when something goes wrong. They are no longer on the line, there is a lot of feedback, they're not muted and we can hear what they're saying, or I need them to ask a question about something. We usually mute our chats when on calls or in meetings, but always have our email alerts on. So i'll send them an email with the subject "You're not muted" or "Ask about the recent article on Mashable" no body. Just a quick line they will see right away.

It works as a 2nd type of Instant message at times. And there are times I end up doing it a few times a day with multiple meetings and things going on.

However, my company is remote. So it's not as easy to communicate. My current boss is in New York and my old boss was in San Diego. So we rely on email heavily.

 

[sbtrfly74]

I will sometimes use the subject line as a body.

Occasionally I am in a meeting with other coworkers when something goes wrong. They are no longer on the line, there is a lot of feedback, they're not muted and we can hear what they're saying, or I need them to ask a question about something. We usually mute our chats when on calls or in meetings, but always have our email alerts on. So i'll send them an email with the subject "You're not muted" or "Ask about the recent article on Mashable" no body. Just a quick line they will see right away.

It works as a 2nd type of Instant message at times. And there are times I end up doing it a few times a day with multiple meetings and things going on.

However, my company is remote. So it's not as easy to communicate. My current boss is in New York and my old boss was in San Diego. So we rely on email heavily.

Typing a quick msg in the subject line and no body isn't the same as trying to type an entire paragraph in the subject line. Ive done that before just a quick note w/ an attachment or link. But Ive only encountered once someone trying to type an entire msg in the subject line and they were very computer illiterate (as stated by them).

I hate the mass msg's of religious stuff or this is funny. Those ppl eventually go to spam.

 

[goofyintoronto]

I work with someone who types an entire paragraph in the subject line as well, drives me CRAZY!

All caps is annoying as well.

And when someone signs it with just their initial, and not the fullname.

 

[SC Minnie]

I have a coworker that does this as well. It's extremely irritating. He will type half the email in the subject then continue into the body of the email. And he doesn't use proper sentence structure. He types a few words............ then will continue on......... like this......... which is very annoying.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

People that do not do blind carbon copy emails. It is not cool to have everyone's email visible to others when you send it out.

 

[YoYoAurora]

@Jennasis - your DH is spot on! I can't count how many people I know that use the subject line for e-mail content. Using the subject line for a quick message, as @Saimaeve does, is understandable. @scminnie's co-worker would drive me smack up a wall. Oh wait. I'm already there!

[Soapbox ON]
I also can't stand:

using "reply all" all of the time. Use this feature when you really want everyone on the e-mail to see your response.
writing or posting in all caps. You're giving me a headache folks!
not using blind cc when sending out mass e-mails. Not everyone wants their e-mail out there for the world to see.
forwards of forwards of forwards of forwards where you have to keep scrolling up and down to figure out what's going on.
​

[Soapbox OFF]

 

[nkereina]

LOL - a whole paragraph in the subject would drive me nuts, but I do have people I work with who will put things like "Where is conference room 1?" in the subject, with the body of the email blank. It does help me to see what they want quickly and therefore respond quickly.

I hate when people type long emails and have bad punctuation, or worse, don't break up the paragraphs. When I open an email and see one giant block of text, I have to read it like 3 or 4 times to comprehend. Keep it short or at least make it easy to read!

 

[Jennasis]

Just now received this from her:

FYI, The guy from XYZ who sells that product you all like says he will be by sometime this week to drop off another batch. Its $4 a piece.

 

[jdb in AZ]

People who forward political propaganda, which is usually exaggerated or inaccurate. Even when I have a similar opinion about the politician, I don't like to read about it in e-mail (or on Facebook.) Or people telling me to forward a religious e-mail to prove my beliefs. grrr.

 

[Mickeypooh99]

I was just complaining to DH about an email issue. When you get a group email about a certain subject. Then another person in the group wants to email everyone about a different subject. So instead of creating a new email they reply all to the original email, but they don't bother changing the subject line. It drives me crazy!

For example, my DH sent out an email about summer camp to all the scouts in our troop. Then a few days later it was bad weather and the weekly meeting was cancelled. So the scoutmaster replied to the camp email with the notice that scouts was cancelled. The subject still said summer camp. Not every scout goes to camp. I think if my kid wasn't going to camp, I probably wouldn't have read that email right away if at all. I would have assumed it didn't pertain to us. I get that they don't want to create a new email, and it's easier to reply to an old email, but just change the subject!

 

[Pugsly]

I have one employee who doesn't use punctuation, capitalization, or even whole sentences. She breaks everything up with dashes. It's very difficult to understand what she is saying or when she has a question.

When I corrected her, she started crying, saying that she used to win all sorts of writing competitions! I'm thinking 'in what country?' And 'competition must have been slim!'

 

[HannaBelle]

People that do not do blind carbon copy emails. It is not cool to have everyone's email visible to others when you send it out.

This!!!

And then you start getting random emails from people you do not know with poetry or warm fuzzy sayings or the other recipients trying to sell you something. Seriously?

 

[jrmasm]

Unnecessarily replying to all.

 

[SMD]

I don't mind a single sentence in an email subject as long as they indicate that there's nothing in the body of the email. Something like:

Can you come by my office after lunch? no text

Then I get the message just by looking at my inbox and don't have to stop what I'm doing to open the email.

 

[ImDMous]

I was just talking about a particular email pet peeve at work. We have at least one person who will email you and then immediately come to your desk and say "Did you get my email?" Uhmmmm, I don't know yet, but if I did I certainly haven't read it yet. And if you were going to come over here anyway, why bother emailing? And if you wanted the paper trail of an email, why not give me a minute to actually answer it? Arrgggg!

 

[kamik86]

Unnecessarily replying to all.

Even worse is when you get an email that goes to a large group and someone replies to all. Then a few min later you get the email that replies to all saying not to reply to all. I mean really if you REALLY felt the need to correct the person couldn't you have just sent that to them instead of doing exactly what your correcting them for? Even better you could have just ignored it.

Sometimes someone even insists on posting this rant I just did above in yet another reply all.


We also have someone in our office that likes to use email as an IM. He will send you a one line little email about something or ask a question that you just know as soon as you answer is going to have a follow up question. Sometimes going for 10-15 emails (with people that probably don't need to be involved also CC'd because they were involved in the bigger original topic). Either IM, a phone call, or even stopping by the persons desk would be preferred.

 

[Happy Snowman]

Work emails..to everyone in the company

I'm going to lunch
I'm back from lunch
I'm going to the bathroom
Sorry, that took a while, back from the bathroom....

I get that they have to let SOME people know where they are or if they are out, but not everyone.