Save a Colleague's Life: Never, Ever Hit Reply-All
Email is pretty great. And it’s been in use for far longer than the glorious world wide web we know today. Unfortunately, the way we typically use email sucks big time. And out of all the lousy email practices we encounter in our lives, the primary source is definitely the workplace.
To name just a few of the bad habits:
- We email too much
- We expect colleagues to respond at the speed of light
- We email colleagues in a cubicle literally six feet away
- We set up out-of-office messages when taking a toilet break
- We passive-aggressively CC our bosses just to get other people to do stuff
- We choose email conversations over a quick 30-second phone call
But as the wise sage Ed Sheeran once warned us, bad habits lead to late nights, endin' alone.
So let's stop this horror. Together.
Stop CC-ing
There is one simple thing you can do to make your colleague's day. Starting today.
Stop CC-ing people!
And if you're on the other side, stop using the evil, horrendous, and utterly oppresive “reply-all.”
You are wasting your colleagues' time and probably ruining their day. And their week. And their entire lives. It's way better to send an occasional email twice rather than bombard everyone with a million just-to-be-sure emails they don’t give a single shit about and probably don’t even really concern them.
So, by all means, just stop it already.
