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BLOODY IRRITATING EMAIL BEHAVIOUR - especially sodding Reply Alls
I'm busy. You may have noticed that I don't exactly sit around all day. Well, no, I do sit around all day but that's because I'm a writer and that's hard to do standing up. Also, I do a lot of sitting on trains. But, I'm busy. Hold that thought.
And I love email. There's nothing nicer than the delicate ping of another email arriving to distract me from what I'm supposed to be doing. Well, there are some things nicer, but not before the sun is over the yard-arm. But, the emails I like are the ones that tell me something I want to know. Or ask me something I want to be asked. Not the ones that tell me things that are of no sodding use at all, the ones that make me open them and then induce a "WTF do I want to know that for?" sensation.
Here's the point - and it should be taught in primary school and every year from then on, until the very thought of sending an unnecessary Reply All is as anathemic as chucking a half-eaten mayonnaisey sandwich on the pavement and then walking on it in open-toed sandals.
Part One of the Point
If you are emailing several people at once, think very carefully before doing an open CC rather than BCC. Here's why:- An Open CC creates a list which can be passed on.* Do all these people want to be on such a list? OK, so my email address is not protected by a super-duper-RyanGiggsesque-injunction, but I prefer people to go find it than to have it delivered to them on a spam-easing plate, with all sorts of ramifications out of my control.
- You make it highly likely that people will then indulge in my absolute pet hate. Which brings us to..
The
Unnecessary
Reply
All
I am too busy and too crabbit to cope with all the Me! Oh, me too! Not for, me! Busy that day! Sorry can't help!s to a question I never asked and don't want the answer to. Or, when as recently happened, someone I had never met emailed dozens - maybe hundreds, I was too drained to count - of his acquaintances to tell them about a piece of news, which I happened to know already anyway, and I then had to receive a whole river of emails from other people I didn't know congratulating him, when I was in the middle of a really busy week. I would have congratulated him myself (because he sounded nice, even though I had never met him and had no idea why he was emailing me) if I hadn't been throwing things at the screen by then.
Anyway, I moaned about this on Twitter the other day, and Maxine Frances (@maxinefrances) sent me this fabulous link. Please read it and please take heed. There's a very serious point: email tyranny is a scourge for everyone working at a computer, everyone in an office, and we'd all be happier and healthier if everyone knew about good and thoughtful behaviour.
And yes, I'm a grumpy cow. I'm allowed to be.
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Over to you. What gets your goat? Care to shout about it? If so, go to the Over To You page for instructions. (It needs to be vaguely writing-related. Emails are vaguely writing-related...) And it can be quite short, doesn't need to be funny - just sound off.
I'm on the train to London today, in preparation for the London Writers' Café event tomorrow. Do come! For details, click the event link near the top of the page, on the right. Lots of people have signed up and I am brushing up my crabbitness... And I will have books for sale :)) and some Crabbit bags to give away if I have room in my luggage.
15 comments:
This a simple moan about Twitter.
Please don't tell me what to do. I won't respond to "Check out my blog", "RT please", or "If you do only one thing today, make it ..." Anyway, who only does one thing in a day? Grrrr.
@Nicola: I am so in agreement! I hate having to wade through them at work, especially when in amongst all the education bumf (I don't know how to spell that sound, any ideas?) that I don't care to know because it conflicts with my own teaching beliefs, I come across a joke that's been sent to everyone 'to brighten up their day'?! It doesn't brighten up my day, I hit delete. I teach. Children brighten up my day and if you need an extra sweetener in the morning then find another job - there is a queue of enthusiastic just-finished-probation teachers who really want your job... Nuff said!
Thankyou for giving me a space to get that off my chest. Now back to the writing :-)
Hooray. I completely agree, also applies to one word Facebook messages which go on for weeks. I have a few crabbity points:
1: People who describe Lulu (etc.) as indie publishing
2: People who have blogs riddled with spelling/grammatical errors, but who have ‘written a book’.
3: People who describe themselves as ‘published authors’ when two clicks reveal they are most definitely not.
4: People in the first three categories who tell me how I should write, because, clearly, they are now experts.
5: People who pitch on Twitter (it makes me feel horribly awkward just to read it).
6: People who continuously post the link to their blog/book, but sneakily disguised as other things, so I am lured into clicking on it several times in one day.
7: People who use the ‘comments’ section on other people’s blogs to advertise their own blog/book/life.
8: People who #FF everyone on their followers list, in alphabetical order, every Friday for hours at a time.
9: People who tweet “I’ll DM you”, which is equivalent to saying “I’m going to whisper to you in the corner so no one else can hear”. Why tell us?
10: People who follow fifty-three thousand people. Because it’s just silly.
I feel much better now. Thank you.
I must be more laid back than I thought (or maybe it's the tablets) because I just hit delete and forget about them. Most times I don't even open anything that looks like a waste of time. I never pass on 'pass it on' emails or reply to stupid jokes or anything in bold pink letters. I refuse to give in to blackmail by signing a petition or whatever I am made to feel mean and guilty if I don't. I. Just. Won't. So. Don't. Make. Me.
absolutely with Sally - those emotional blackmail things *really* bug me. You get them on Facebook all the time as well - those "I'll know who my real friends are because they will cut and paste this to their status in support of blah blah blah". Er, no, your real friends are the ones who'll send you a private message to say you're being a passive-aggressive plank.
I've just sent Becky a soapbox on my number one beef - the appearance-ism of the "new writers" scene at the moment (I say this as a middle-aged ugly fat bloke who's experienced snide remarks from publishing insiders firsthand).
I'm not so bothered by Reply-All e-mail threads. Gmail's handy for keeping it all neat and tidy.
But I do get tired of the #WW or #FF Tweets. I'd rather find new people to follow from a good post re-Tweeted than just being told to.
Nicola, this is a great how-not-to-use-email list, but I hope you realise that you have raised my blood pressure just thinking about all these annoyances! "Me too" emails would be the top of my list.
Fleur, it is bumf - short for bumfodder...
Joanna, your anti-wishlist is also spot-on. I've unfollowed several blogs/twitter accounts for one or other of those crimes. When will they learn?
There is nothing worse than thinking you've got an exciting new email, only to find it's a WTF one!
Thanks, Nicola. It IS a fabulous, fabulous link - though now feel wary how I should mention it. Lesson learned???
Bumf? Once upon a time there was no Andrex. Unimportant paper was torn into squares and used. Ecological and a satisfying response, I'd guess.
My husband belongs to a local rock band comprised almost entirely of doctors, except him. They do almost all of their communication through email. The several members of the group have rather large egos and drama almost always ensues.
They fight over email, they are smartasses over email, and they occasionally do business over email. They do all this by hitting "Reply All." Not only do the band members do it, but their wives, as well. My husband had to get a different email address to keep them from flooding his work email.
Don't even get me started on people who cc when they should bcc (I don't want all *your* contacts to know my email address!).
I use Gmail and any that do slip through are deleted immediately.
What I really, really hate are those 'thoughts for the day' usually signed with 'peace and blessings' after the sender's name at the bottom of the email.
They do not make me peaceful and I certainly do not feel blessed.
Jacqueline - the only 'Please RT's I take notice of are those that are seeking serious help - lost dog, lost child, urgent question. I absolutely agree that people who just tell you to look at their blog - or like their page (WTF!) - are not going to get anywhere.
Sally - I'm with you. The delete key is a great calmer. But the Reply All button should be hidden a few layers through the menus to deter people from doing that.
My pet hate - people who respond to a question on a forum with 'I don't know'. Why reply??? We don't want to see your message saying you don't know, so just shut up and save our time until there is something you DO know!
It's the chain letters by email which annoy me most. Even the kind where you add your favourite recipe and send it on, with the promise that you'll get several recipes in return. I never pass them on. I'm a dead end for all such emails, and proud of it. Delete! Delete! I sound like a Cyberman.
Chain letters get my goat, as well. My grandmother sends the most awful, unsubstantiated political messages warning of the dire consequences of being a Democrat. Only one has been true since she started using email. I don't say anything, as I figure I owe her for raising me and such. :-)
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