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Whether you look to Miss Manners, the Cybercouth Tiger, Mother, or some other manners maven, they will all say that being polite will make people more receptive to your message. So, how can we hone our electronic communication skills to this degree? Let’s take a look at a few of the most egregious e-mail etiquette errors and discuss how certain situations should be handled.
The first item on our list is the angry e-mail. E-mail provides a crucial benefit over face-to-face communication: you have a chance to carefully choose your words and compose an eloquent message. But e-mail can also inspire a confidence that may be lacking in live communication.
This can lead to the angry e-mail, and sometimes it’s all too easy to write things you would never say. There’s probably a reason you would never say those things, so it’s important to keep that in mind before pushing that Send button. Once you do, there’s no way to get that message back.
So if you’re angry, upset, or irritated in any way, it may be best to step away from the computer for a break. That way, you will likely cool off or relax and have a better frame of mind; after all, you probably don’t want to burn any important bridges.
Next, let’s talk about the plague of electronic communication: the forwarded chain letter. We’ve all gotten these and may have even been tempted to pass them on at some point. I mean, let’s face it: if we pass that message on to at least ten friends, we could suddenly inherit millions of dollars. And if we don’t, it could mean bad luck for the next seven years. But that is more than likely not going to be the case.
Chain letters were annoying enough when they arrived as paper mail, but in that form they cost money to send. With electronic mail, which is mostly free, chain letter forwards are even more prevalent, and just as bothersome.
Some of these messages make you feel guilty if you ignore them, or even threaten karmic disasters if you fail to pass them on to a specified amount of recipients. And then there those that imply technical catastrophes if you don’t click on something or delete a certain file. Please, friends: don’t fall for those.
So, you might ask: what is the best way to handle these unwanted messages? First of all, delete the message, especially if it is the kind that threatens technical disaster or asks you to click on a link. Second: if they are coming from a relative or close friend, ask them gently to not include you on the list for those e-mails unless they directly know the source. Remember, this may be the only entertainment dear Aunt Sally has.
Our dear friend, the Cybercouth Tiger, sent a note about a few other aspects of e-mail etiquette that he wanted to share with us. Here is what he had to say:
One of my avocations is playing stand-up bass in an amateur jazz ensemble. We have six musicians in the band, but using electronic calendaring is impractical for us. As a result, our rehearsals and gigs are scheduled via e-mail messages. This would be quite acceptable but for a few irritating habits of the members in the percussion section. They don’t seem to grasp the concept that only the band member serving as our organizer needs to know if they can or cannot attend a particular date. Being drummers (and in bands, it is always the drummers), they use Reply to All when Reply was all that was needed. We all get enough superfluous e-mail from spammers and bots without getting it from percussionists, too.
On top of this, the stick-wielding troglodytes don’t understand that typing in all capital letters is rude. I often must restrain myself from replying to them (not using Reply to All, of course) that, “ALL CAPS IS FORTISSISSIMO. PLEASE STOP YELLING!” While the decorum of a jazz band would never allow me to comport myself in such a manner with my band mates, I count it a privilege to be able to help you avoid the percussionists’ errors and harmonize with the groups with which you work.
Thanks for the advice, Cybercouth!
The tips for this week center around these ideas and a few others that will help you avoid behaving like a troglodyte, or any other unsavory character.
- Reply to All With Care – Using the Reply to All feature in Outlook and Notes
- Think Before You Send – Understanding Outlook’s message recall feature
- Don’t Shout – Avoiding the use of all caps
- Unread Letters – Manually marking messages as read or unread in Outlook
- Need a Receipt With That? – Using read receipts in Outlook and Notes
- Break the Chain – Dealing with chain letters in e-mail
- Read it Later – Manually marking messages as read or unread in Windows Mobile
Enjoying these tips? Have any suggestions for future podcasts? Stop over and write a review of the podcast on iTunes, or drop us a quick note on Twitter @productiveUcast.
That’s all for this week. Until next time, remember to make Miss Manners, the Cybercouth Tiger, and Mom proud of your e-mail communication.
Music courtesy of Clayton & Fulcrum
