ITT: Post your biggest pet peeves related to email etiquette (or other examples of bothersome unprofessionalism in the workplace)

[Meauxse]

Oh man, another. I end my emails with:

Thanks,
David

Some scum bags will then reply "Hi Dave"

What universe are they living in?


I don't get this. Do you text people before calling? If they're busy they won't pick up. Check to see if they're already on a call or presenting, sure, but if green or away? Fair game.

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Teams is not a phone call. Teams is video as well. Heavy disagree on this. It takes two seconds to write, "got a sec?" Transition to this new methodology of work and suddenly boundaries are not a thing?

You walk into someone's office and start talking or do you knock and say, got a sec? "Manners maketh man," and all that

 

[joedick]

It drives me nuts, but this is actually my division's policy - we HAVE to CC our supervisors on any requests outside of the team because people in other teams were just NOT DOING THINGS we asked them to do so our supervisors made us start CCing them on everything to make sure there's a paper trail if another team drops the ball.

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I've been asked to do this sometimes for the same reason - paper trail. But an email without the CC is still a paper trail!

 

[Cruxist]

I've been asked to do this sometimes for the same reason - paper trail. But an email without the CC is still a paper trail!

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I've heard a bunch of excuses for this. "Oh, it's harder to track. They won't know they're supposed to be involved because they weren't on the original email…" It's frustrating.

 

[Poppy]

ending your email with ellipses means i automatically hate you

also i frequently get called by people who send me emails before the email is even done loading into my inbox and they want me to have a fully formed response about something i haven't read

also if you come to my cubicle if i'm in an office and do that pretend knocking shit on my wall like it's a door then our chance for a friendly rapport is over

 

[Darth Karja]

I don't get this. Do you text people before calling? If they're busy they won't pick up. Check to see if they're already on a call or presenting, sure, but if green or away? Fair game.

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Yes, I do text people before calling. And I expect them to do the same if they want me to answer.

 

[bananab]

Sometimes after a short email exchange, someone will randomly email back one more time "just making conversation" about something unrelated, like what they did last weekend. Not a fan!

 

[Cotton McKnight]

I'm talking about a quick "Hi". Emails in my profession look like this:

"Send cost impact ASAP"

After years of this, I want to punch the screen every time.

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My old favorite response to emails like that, not from the boss of course, "Are you asking me to do that, or telling me?" Most people would then call me and be really nice and ask they way they would want me to ask them. Sometimes I would have a not well adjusted co-worker stomp over to my cubicle and proceed to yell at me. I would just smile and nod at the yeller, then ask them the same thing again when they were done. My last corporate America boss got a kick out of this and thus would support my action.

I was very happy to get off from that place just in time for the birth of my son and become a stay at home parent.

 

[RPGam3r]

I don't get this. Do you text people before calling? If they're busy they won't pick up. Check to see if they're already on a call or presenting, sure, but if green or away? Fair game.

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If you cold call me expect to get no answer. Always ask before a call. Green only means the person is able to talk, not that they will.

 

[brainchild]

I don't get this. Do you text people before calling? If they're busy they won't pick up. Check to see if they're already on a call or presenting, sure, but if green or away? Fair game.

Click to shrink...

Phone calls out of the blue are whatever for me, but unsolicited video calls are unacceptable and I would never answer them under any circumstance. I rarely even do that for close family members outside of work.

Teams is not a phone call. Teams is video as well. Heavy disagree on this. It takes two seconds to write, "got a sec?" Transition to this new methodology of work and suddenly boundaries are not a thing?

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Exactly this.

 

[Fuchsia]

Boomers barking orders through email with terrible grammar and punctuation

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Yup.

Sometimes people don't realize how passive aggressive their shit sounds also. It's a pet peeve of mine. Like, you know you don't have access to tone of voice and other aspects that help verbal communication, so please pay close attention to how you structure your sentences cause it feels like you're yelling at me lol.

 

[krae_man]

Haven't experienced no subject line. Hell the opposite is common. For short subjects usually just the subject line is used.

"We're ordering chinese, what in?" As the subject line with an empty body instead of subject line: dinner then "hello coworker..."

Not responding to every question in an email bugs me too since it's not like I'm asking completely unrelated questions. I need every answer to do the the thing you asked me to do.

 

[deimosmasque]

2ND REQUEST

I'm getting to your worthless ass task that you have for me. I have about 20 of them!

 

[Replicant]

Mass emails for shit that shouldn't be mass emails
People in mass emails reply to all
People sending mass emails asking for help with something they should put a tech ticket in for

 

[zma1013]

The Prince of Nigeria keeps emailing me but he doesn't even take the time to spell his country name right. Like dude, you're a Prince, you should have a secretary for this kind of thing.

 

[SirCheese]

Ask three questions in email. They reply to just the first question.

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I get this so often. Sometimes I'll pose a question with two options (do you want x or x?) and all I get as a reply is "ok"...

 

[Addleburg]

I am talking about when it is a company wide email that has 100's of people on the email list. Not just a small group discussion.

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Fair point - totally agree then.

Fuuuuuuck, we have certain customers who when they need to contact us via email will only email a single person in our org that they're dealt with in the past. We always reply back and add the necessary group distros to the chain and even politely explain to the customer to use the distros so that the whole group receives the email, that way if a single person is out of the office the request doesn't get lost. Does it work? Nope, the customer will reply back to the individual sender thanking them for the info and continue to leave the distro off the email chain.

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I often wonder if it's because some people have literally never used the "reply-all" button, so they don't stop to consider that it can be appropriate to use in certain situations. Honestly, I find that people in my org under-use the reply-all tool more than they over-use it.

Most of the ones I see look like corporate-wide signatures, so they unfortunately can't be changed. I've never touched mine ever and it's simple text (with name, phone, company name, address), but some of my vendors (and everyone I correspond with from their company) have bigass page-long signatures with multiple images and a ton of unused white space. I don't know why their marketing team thinks that's OK, but it seems to be an enterprise thing that everyone uses.

Click to shrink...

Oh, I totally getcha. There are definitely people in my org who have added quotes and symbols and stuff in their signature that I always find distracting. Our org's signature template is long enough that I can't imagine wanting to add anything additional just to personalize it further. Signatures should be white noise - they should have useful info when people need it, but should otherwise blend into the background as much as possible.

I get this so often. Sometimes I'll pose a question with two options (do you want x or x?) and all I get as a reply is "ok"...

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Ok, this I fucking hate, haha. I think I literally do the 🤷🏿‍♂️ emoji in real life when someone replies to a multiple choice question with "yes."

 

[bananab]

I was working with someone that was my single point of contact for their entire team, they made it clear I should only correspond with them (my preference as well, obviously), then they proceeded to CC everyone on their team whenever they sent me anything, which predictably threw open the floodgates in the opposite direction.

 

[Addleburg]

Also, I wonder if the ellipses thing is regional or industry-specific. I don't think I've ever seen someone send an email that ended in that way. Or maybe I never noticed before and will proceed to notice it all the time now.

 

[Manu]

Getting my name wrong.

Copying my supervisor over dumb shit.

Getting my name wrong.

"Hi, could you provide info X, Y and Z?"
Response: "Can you call me real quick? it's easier that way." (it never is)

And getting my name wrong. It's on my signature for fuck's sake.

 

[David Incorporated Esq.]

Green doesn't necessarily mean that I'm not in the middle of something. My status might be green for 5 hours a day sometimes; doesn't mean I'm sitting there twiddling my thumbs. I don't always mark myself as "Busy" when I'm working on a concentration-intensive task.

And why bother calling if the status is "Away"? Just send an IM saying something like "Please reach out when you get a chance, regarding (insert subject here)."

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Yes, I do text people before calling. And I expect them to do the same if they want me to answer.

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If you cold call me expect to get no answer. Always ask before a call. Green only means the person is able to talk, not that they will.

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Color be a bit surprised by the feedback. I'll say I generally ask if someone is free before calling (I never video call as I've been working on person since June 2020), but if I'm rushed or it's not feasible at the moment I'll call. They don't have to pick up, it won't hurt my feelings. That leaves them the option of calling back later or messaging me once they're free.

 

[RPGam3r]

Color be a bit surprised by the feedback. I'll say I generally ask if someone is free before calling (I never video call as I've been working on person since June 2020), but if I'm rushed or it's not feasible at the moment I'll call. They don't have to pick up, it won't hurt my feelings. That leaves them the option of calling back later or messaging me once they're free.

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Asking someone if they can take a call does the same exact thing as a missed call without the assumption that they can talk.

One is requesting permission to interrupt the person's current activity. The other is assuming that interrupting is ok to do, and depending on personalities/hierarchy some people may feel forced to take your call even if it isn't in their best interest.

 

[mutantmagnet]

When people use the reply all function instead of just reply.

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I'm of two minds on this in previous companies I didn't use reply all because I was aware of who or what departments needed to be included.

But in this company I'm in now not using reply all for divisions that don't exist in the same building as I do discourages assuming I can know what their needs are.

 

[Irishmantis]

"This email was sent by IPhone"

 

[gblues]

If you want to stop getting snitch CC'd and "per my last email" replies, do better about reading your e-mails and don't ask questions that have already been answered.

 

[Randam]

Ask three questions in email. They reply to just the first question.

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Or only the last one.

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haha, first thing that came to mind.


and emails with only "for your information" in the subject line.
makes it sooo easy to find stuff again.. not.