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Today I listened to an interview with Samara O’Shea, who has written a book about the lost art of letter writing. I agree with her wholeheartedly. There is a time and a place for a handwritten letter or card. I must write a few more. Except I wrote some thank-you cards a short time ago and noticed that my handwriting has degraded terribly in the last few years, during which time my handwritten examples have been pretty much limited to shopping lists. I could hardly read it myself. So, therein lies one of the benefits of emails. When it comes to the aesthetics, everyone is equal. (Except for those idiots who choose to convert their entire messages to some random squiggly font only suitable for titles, then centre justify it to make it look like a poem. When it’s really not of that calibre.)

The problem with emails, I think most people would agree, is that they are too easy. Too easy to get completely wrong. Too easy to flick off to too many people before realising that you’ve been too harsh, got something wrong, or sent it to someone you shouldn’t have. Don’t get me wrong – emails are my main mode of communication and that’s not set to change. For one thing, emails save the trees. (Unless you’re one of those weird people who print them all off, feeling somehow more secure in the knowledge that you’re surrounded by even more sheets of yet-to-be-filed A4 white papers.)

No, my issues are mainly with group emails…

1. bcc stands for Blind Carbon Copy and if you’re sending a huge group email, the email addresses should go in there. I didn’t know this until fairly recently either. I’m sure if more people noticed the bcc feature in their email editors, they would use it. It’s a matter of privacy really.
2. If you send me a massive group email because you want to tell a whole heap of people practically the same thing, that’s fine. I understand. I’d do the same myself. Especially if you’re travelling, or if you’ve had some major life change… But if I then send you back an individual, personalised response, I will, at some stage in the future expect the same in return. Instead, it’s pretty common to receive a year’s worth of group broadcasts with never so much as a personalised one liner back. Well, if you’re only going to use email to make impersonal broadcasts, why not make use of MySpace or Facebook? That way I can go onto your site when I’m wondering what you’re up to. To me, emails should attempt to the bridge the gap between those impersonal broadcasts and handwritten snail mail.
3. It might pay to edit your group email list once in a while. I hear from several people who I met once or twice, a number of years ago. And I’m wondering if they even realise that they’re sending me their broadcasts.

Email is a relatively new genre and the rules of etiquette are still being formed.  I know someone at work who complains if someone sends her an electronic thank-you.  Thing is, this workmate considers the deal done one step earlier, after she has responded to the request for information.  She considers a thank-you to be a waste of her precious time.  She feels obliged to open it up.  And delete it.  All precious time, and clogging up the network.  Personally, I like a thank-you.  Unless I get the thanks, I wonder if the job is over and done. 

I guess workplace harmony is a matter of learning the idiosyncracies of our co-workers.  A conversation over smoko may be in order, because like me, you may be surprised at the variety of preferences regarding email etiquette.