Ted the Penguin

Email Etiquette

So do me a favor.  Before you send me an email, make an effort with it, please?

I recieved the following a few weeks ago:

Subject: hello

hay

u want 2 do lunch later?

~J

I almost didn’t bother to respond to him, but my conscious got the better of me.  He broke many of my email rules. So many that I considered marking it as spam for the hell of it.

1. The subject tells me nothing about the contents of the email.
2. It’s not obvious from the excerpt above, but it was sent from an email address that he doesn’t normally use, and thus I didn’t recognize it right away.  The signature, “J” tells me nothing.  That’s alright if I’m in a long email chain with somebody, but for an initial email?
3. Would it kill somebody to use proper English?
4. The number 2 is just that, a number.
5. If you can’t spend the 10 extra seconds to type out “You”, don’t send me an email. (Could take that long on a crackberry, I’m trying to give benefit of the doubt here!)

More of email etiquette here and here.  My favorites include:

• Don’t Use The Forward Button.  Ever.
• Nothing is more wasteful than to reply to an e-mail by including a complete copy of the original with the words “I agree”, “Okay” or “Ditto” at the bottom.
• Use of upper-case words is the equivalent of shouting in some one’s ear. ONLY use upper-case words when trying to make a point (such as I just did). Even at that, you should be careful with who you are exchanging messages.

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m guilty of many of these.  Heck, today, I was guilty of many of these.  But what’s that line from Family Guy….?

“You know what grinds my gears?”

Bad email etiquette is the answer of the day.

Note: I did reply to him, I did have lunch with him, and I failed to mention the anguish that his note caused.  Maybe he’ll read this.