Morning Coffee and Mail
Can you think of anyone you know who doesn’t have a computer? It may not have started out as a tool for the average consumer but computing certainly is mainstream now. The average household has at least one desktop computer or a laptop/notebook. Your grandmother may not be able to tell the difference between gigahertz or gigabytes, but chances are, she can send and receive e-mail, forward photos, shop online and maybe even print out her shopping receipts.
Oh, the joy of opening your e-mail inbox to find messages from all your friends and colleagues. It’s become part of our daily routines. You grab your morning coffee and before starting the day you sit down at your computer to read the “mail”.
But just like a hand-written letter, there are certain Rules of Etiquette that make receiving your daily mail a much more pleasant experience. Aunt Martha may have her copy of Emily Post’s book on etiquette memorized, but Emily herself, never owned a P.C. Here’s a list of tips/rules that might help you and your dear Aunt Martha out.
Re-Read before you click "Send"
- Use BCC option (Blind Carbon Copy) when addressing a message that will go to a large group of people who may or may not know each other. You wouldn’t give out a person’s cell phone number without his or her knowledge. It’s not polite to broadcast everyone’s e-mail address either. When you send a message to 30 people and use “To” or “CC” fields to address the message, all 30 people see each other’s address. By using BCC, each recipient sees only your address and their own.
- Don’t use the CC (Carbon Copy) function to copy your message to everyone. These days everyone receives too much e-mail. Unnecessary messages can be annoying. If only a few people need to see the message, then direct it only to them.
- Summarize your message in the subject line. A properly titled message will help your recipient organize and prioritize their e-mail.
- Keep messages short and focused. As popular as computers have become, many of us are now reading our e-mail on smaller screens: our cell phones, Blackberries, and netbooks. Since long messages are hard to read, many of them tend to be ignored.
- Use your Spell Checker. Your correspondence reflects your image. Bad grammar and missing punctuation, may be a mistake but misspelled words are too easy to correct.
- Don’t write in all capital letters. THIS IS THE DIGITAL EQUIVALENT OF SHOUTING. IT’S ALSO DIFFICULT TO READ.
- Don’t write anything you wouldn’t say in public. Any message can be easily forwarded to another recipient, even accidentally. If you don’t want to potentially share something you write, consider using the telephone.
- Avoid sending e-mail to large numbers of people. E-mail broadcast to many recipients may be considered spam.
- Reply in a timely manner. Your response needn’t be instantaneous, however, if someone has made the effort to send you a personal message, just as any other “mail” they deserve a prompt response. Be courteous and let the sender know you received their message.
- As a courtesy to your recipient, include your name at the bottom of the message. The message may contain your e-mail address in the header, but the recipient may not know that the return address belongs to you, especially if it’s different from your real name.
Most importantly, always, always, always, re-read your e-mail before you send it. Sometimes the fingers are faster than the brain and once you click “Send” it’s gone forever, you can’t get it back!
Posted by:Linda Hawkinson
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, a young man with manners! It must make you proud.
Yes, my son has made a blanket rule that he will not text when he gets one when he is with someone else. I was glad to see I raised him well. :)@PinkLadybug -
@Susie – What’s tough is that when you get a lot of those “blanket-forwards” eventually you get to the point that you just begin deleting them without reading. Before you know it, you may hurt a friend or relative’s feelings. I imagine the best thing is to help the sender by exposing them to proper Cyberspace manners. They will eventually have better responses from all of their contacts.
Well said, Linda! I know I make mistakes in my typing, but I usually do re-read my emails and try hard to correct my grammar & spelling. It’s the “old” secretarial skills that I learned in my early years! I receive a lot of emails that sometimes just don’t make sense. And, yes, I hate it when people will send emails that have been sent to many recipients and then the next person sends it on and on and on. I try to “clean up” all forwarded messages. Oh well, what do you do.
@Judy – You are reminding me of another topic and pet peeve as well… Texting. Don’t you go crazy when you’re with someone and they can’t stop texting someone else. Communicating extensively via text when you should be fully engaged in what’s going on in the real world annoys everyone around you.
Excellent! May I add one…don’t read or respond to email when you are talking on the phone. I notice immediately when I am speaking to someone on the phone and then hear the clicking away of the keyboard. They are not listening 100% to me if they are reading or typing and I feel that is a lack of courtesy on their part.