Oh my God, it’s 2022 and still people are sending ‘reply alls’ with their apologies and other personal messages, that only need to go to the person organising the meeting. Today’s offender replied to 30 others. Sometimes it’s many more. Are these people technically incompetent with email (aka stupid) in that they don’t know what they’re doing or are they so narcissistic they think that everyone is interested in their diary or personal life?
Don’t take this personally but we don’t care that you can’t make it, that you have got to take your cat to the vet, that your colleague is off so you have to cover for them or….any other reason.
We can send you sympathy and best wishes on the news that you’ve got Covid or one of your kids has, or good luck for on getting your hair done that day….or whatever, but really, do you want these from people you barely know? You don’t? Well don’t bloody tell all of us why you won’t be at the meeting.
Every email sent consumes about 4g of carbon and any individual’s annual email use is said to consume / produce about the same amount of carbon as driving a fossil fuelled car 200 miles. Obviously, all these estimates are just that. There’s no doubt that large emails, whether due to attachments or fancy HTML content will produce more CO2. Lots of unnecessary emails will slow us up in getting to an environmental balance, which I thought, most of us had agreed was urgent.
In trying to be green I have to fight the urge to send a sarcastic reply all back. I have seen folk do this and then, quite quickly hundreds or thousands of unnecessary emails are generated as lots of people join in, attacking the original poster and everyone who sarcastically replies.
Of course, with emails that aren’t diary entries, the originator could choose to send them by blind copy, if they have the training certificate for such advanced functionality. It would be helpful if at the start of that email it said what the distribution list was too but that’s asking a lot. Why does it matter? Well, it would help us all avoid forwarding it the vital content to colleagues who have already had it, in the mistaken belief we were the only soul on earth who got sent it. Whilst it’s lovely knowing colleagues are thinking of us, the receiving of duplicated emails, is a bit like sending a fart, that can linger longer than the real thing if we don’t hit delete fast.
For fear of triggering a never ending rant I’ll just ask if anyone has solutions to these email crimes, please let me know. I don’t want email etiquette charters though. they might be carefully thought through and polite but they’re like embroidered doilies and antimacassars. In 2022 they have no function. Witty abuse or the fantasy of extreme torture is a solution I prefer.
ShaunOConnell.com 