No email body, just use subject line?

[Imzadi]

n a separate rant, she also misuses ellipses. As a fellow educator, that is unacceptable to me. Every sentence..... is like a stream of consciousness...... with way more than just three periods..... and it makes her writing very irritating to read. Sometimes she’ll throw in multiple hyphens——- just to change things up———- or even lots of commas,,,,,,
What is up with that? It seems like way more work than just writing a regular sentence the normal way.

Hmm. . . . . Maybe she is using stream of consciousness. . . . . It's supposed to be very freeing. . . . . especially to someone who's learned to follow the rules . . . . . . all the time. . . . .

Or if she's doing it on her phone, maybe she doesn't know she can change the time when her screen turns off? So she thinks she has to keep pressing buttons to keep the screen on?

 

[Imzadi]

AND DIFFERENT FONT SIZES?

Ugh! Gmail does that to my emails and not on purpose. I've found that if I copy & paste text from different documents that may be in different fonts & sizes, that Gmail makes it appear, as I'm inserting it, that it's all one font. Yet, when I see the reply and my email has been automatically copied into the reply, it's in all the different fonts from the original documents. With Gmail, what you see is NOT what is sent.

If the email turns into something really important, I have to copy and paste it all into a different document program, highlight all the text and manually change the font in the toolbar, so it's all one font & size. Then copy and paste it all into the email again right before sending.

 

[NotUrsula]

I'm fine with emails without a message body, but I appreciate it if you give me a signal that you meant for it to read that way, so that I don't wonder if you hit "SEND" prematurely.

The opposite situation, however, drives me INSANE. Any message that I receive that has a blank header goes to spam.

 

[CdnCarrie]

I was thinking about this thread. Since WFH I have an older coworker who has done this! Never saw this done before! It's so annoying.

 

[tinatark]

I was an Executive Assistant at a large company. All the execs did this! It was like they were confusing emails with text messages!

 

[nkereina]

I know this is an older thread, but probably even more relevant now with so many working from home and probably using email more than ever.

I work in the back office at a bank. A lot of people will do "Bagels in the break room" type emails with that in the subject, and no body to the message. I can understand that, because nothing more really needs to be said, and it gets the point across to people when they see it in their inbox. Lots of people have massive inboxes so when they are glancing at it, it might be the only way they catch it. But we do have a couple people who do type their whole work-related message/question in the subject. I get they are probably trying to draw attention to their question so its answered quickly when someone reads it in their inbox. But, when I respond, do I like put my response in the subject? Respond in the body? What is their expectation? I agree, its annoying

We do have an internal instant messaging platform too, but the general protocol around it is to instant message people if you have a quick question and they are on "green (available)". If it something you don't need an instant response for or if its something they will have to look into or research, send an email so they can get back to you at their convenience. The message-within-the-subject falls somewhere in between, so its weird.

 

[CarolAnn856]

I do it all the time since I often have to send out quick messages to our faculty and staff, such as “color printer is down” or “library is closed 4th period.” Email is the only communication tool we have that can reach everyone at the same time, and why make someone open up an email for that short of a message? By this point, everyone knows that if I send a quick note like that, there’s nothing more that they need to read in the email itself.

 

[nkereina]

I do it all the time since I often have to send out quick messages to our faculty and staff, such as “color printer is down” or “library is closed 4th period.” Email is the only communication tool we have that can reach everyone at the same time, and why make someone open up an email for that short of a message? By this point, everyone knows that if I send a quick note like that, there’s nothing more that they need to read in the email itself.

I understand in these cases - there's nothing more that needs to be said, and people catch the message in their inbox without having to open the email. For me, its the people who put "Hi! Can you put in a request for Customer Name's loan to have a payment deferral next month? Also call the customer to confirm and send letter" - all in the subject line.

 

[sam_gordon]

I do it all the time since I often have to send out quick messages to our faculty and staff, such as “color printer is down” or “library is closed 4th period.” Email is the only communication tool we have that can reach everyone at the same time, and why make someone open up an email for that short of a message? By this point, everyone knows that if I send a quick note like that, there’s nothing more that they need to read in the email itself.

The way my email works is you still have to click on the email in order to delete it. Clicking on it opens it. If I happened to have emails above and below the one in question, THEN I could delete it without clicking on it. So it's not an automatic "time saver".