Speaking Volumes

An article in US News & World Reports caught my eye this week. Have you ever regretted a hasty click of the reply/reply all or send button. Then18 Common Work E-mail Mistakes might just be the netiquette refresher you need. It must have hit a nerve as there are already 1800 responses. 

It could save you the embarrassment of some blunders like these: 

sending a job offer to the wrong candidate
sending an internal memo about restroom etiquette to a client

sending a nasty comment about your supervisor to the whole company including said boss

 A police officer who sent an email to her colleagues asking: “who stole my yogurt out of the fridge? Unfortunately she accidentally sent the email to the entire state police force and received many a reply including…. “Do you need the FBI? Have you sealed off the area? Has the dog unit been called?”

 A Vice President who accidentally sent details of all his employees’ salary on a company group email. Realizing his error, he set the fire alarm off to clear the office before deleting the email from every inbox.

 A colleague (we’ll call him John) of one of the editors was copied on an email sent to most of the top managers at the editor’s company, including a VP that no one respects (we’ll call him Carl). John intended to simply reply to the sender with the following message, but inadvertently hit Reply To All:

You’d better send this by carrier pigeon to Carl, I doubt he knows how to open his own email. – John

Or this guy who was emailing a customer back and forth. "He was considering buying my product and was also looking at the same product through a dealer (we sell retail and wholesale). Kept explaining that he was looking at exactly the same thing at two different price points. I finally lost patience and emailed my manager and asked him what I should tell this *******. Only problem was I hit the reply button and not the forward button."

You get the picture. These examples are just a few of the email fiasco's I found while searching the net. There are thousands out there. Stephen J. Dubner of the New York Times got 178 comments when he asked "what was the worst email mistake you ever made?".

One last precaution...Don't forget that a final spell check before hitting send can prevent hilarious or sometimes disastrous results. Reading forum messages, one guy says his worst mistake is spelling enhancement as enchantments. Another said he frequently types retards instead of regards. I once sent out a message to a worldwide library list identifying myself as a pubic librarian. 

Take a look at the article and let us know if you have any additional advice of mistakes to avoid, either ones you've seen or any of your own you feel comfortable sharing 

If you're still in need of some emailing tips you can pick up this book from our collection: 

Send : the essential guide to email for office and home / David Shipley and Will Schwalbe.

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