Email Etiquette

Our program manager sent an interesting email this morning. It had the subject line of "Email Etiquette" and contained the usual list of bullets that you would expect in such an email. I would love to reproduce it here, but it contained the line at the bottom "Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited." I hope I can at least reproduce that line without permission.

I would like to add my own version of email Etiquette, and I do wish my program manager was reading this because it does point a finger at him.

When you work for a large corporation, you tend to get a lot of what could best be considered spam. When your corporation supports another large organization, the "All Hands Spam" grows exponentially. Here is Corporate Email Etiquette according to Eric:

* If a message comes out on the corporate "All Hands" distribution list, don't forward it to that same "All Hands" list with the addition of "FYI- in case you didn't get this". If I didn't get it the first time it went to the all hands list, what makes you think that by forwarding it to that same list in the global address book I would get it that time? Why do a minimum of 2 or 3 layers of management believe that they have to forward every all hands email back to the all hands list with that subject line? Again, if I didn't get it the first time, I wouldn't get it the second, third, forth...

* I know you appoint 6 Vice Presidents a week in varying capacities "downtown" at corporate headquarters. I don't care. I don't know any of them, I'll never meet any of them, and in a week when they advance and get replaced by another VP, the same applies.

* Everyone in the company does not know everyone who is retiring, leaving, or sadly has passed on. Is it necessary to send more than 1 email regarding the party, luncheon, or, sadly, funeral? Do we need to remind everybody 4 times a day about this?

* The same applies to barbecues, baseball tickets, NASCAR tickets, formal dinners, or any other activity. You don't have to remind the entire organization 12 times a day about these things through email.

* My company has a "15 Year Club", apparently made of up employees who have been with the company for 15 years or more. Every now and again, an email hits the corporate all hands list (this is a global corporation) with "The 15 year club would like to share it's newsletter with everybody". I don't know many people in the 15 year club, and I'm not very concerned about their newsletter. I read it once, and it's just a bunch of gossip about who did what and where. I work in a field office, and what goes on "downtown" really doesn't concern me.

Granted, none of this is in itself bad, but when you consider the volumes of email that people receive, please save me some repetitive strain injury by not making me hit the Delete key so often.

If I were in charge, I would mandate an all hands list for official announcements, and another strictly opt-in and opt-out for all of the corporate spam.

Maybe I'll create another post about a way that I have found to deal with some of the corporate spam that goes around in my corporation and organization.