Did you know that there is such a thing as email etiquette - for Work?
I don't know about you, but I have tripped into many pitfalls with my emails! Emails can have a tone, attitude, rudeness, and they can be offensive!
Many of us use email as a quick way of communicating something simple to another person without considering that written word often has more of an impact than anything else in society!
How many times have you read an email, which annoyed you initially, making you wanted to respond immediately yet once you re read it, you realized that maybe you had not really read it properly?
When we used to write letters to people years ago, you know the kind we used to pop in the mail with a stamp.
There was a formal way we were taught in school how to write letters.
How to format a letter, it was a skill! It was a part of an English lesson and we were tested on it, in my school
How many of us have had formal education on how to write emails? I haven't
I almost consider emails as a quick note, not paying it much attention, not really giving it much thought!
STOP emails are a written documentation and will follow you where ever you go!
They can be used against you as well as for you!
Be careful of what you write! It could come back and bite you on the left cheek! I am only discussing work emails here but the rules can apply to all emailing, the ones we write in the heat of the day.
I have complied a few simple rules of email which may help you in the future, and yes I am only touching on the topic but I have witnessed careers falling apart because Email has been used incorrectly.
1/ Do not send your emails as soon as you write them wait a few minutes return and look at it. Imagine you were receiving the email and consider if you would appreciate the tone and the content!
(It never fails to amaze how many ambiguities you manage to work into short and simple emails)
2/ If in doubt ask somebody you can trust to review before sending
3/ Do not email anything which could have serious future consequences for you. Emails can be used as evidence in a court of law
4/ Do not press reply all as a default, it may not be suitable! Review who the reply all will go to!
5/ Try to keep it short and sweet
6/ Clean up forwarding emails, you know the emails which contain great advice you want to share.
If you are at the end of such a sharing chain, you'll quickly see why cleaning up emails before forwarding them is essential: messages that have been forwarded multiple times often contain '>' and other quotation characters in all the wrong places, lines are broken in even worse places, and email addresses of people you don't want to know are everywhere.
7/ It is polite to let somebody know that you received their email and that it didn't get lost in cyber space or the spam bin
8/ Try to talk about one subject per email to avoid confusion
9/ Be careful using irony in emails especially if you don't know the person, it can cause multiple problems
10/ REMEMBER TO WRITE IN CAPITALS MEANS YOU ARE SHOUTING AT THE PERSON!
'My mother used to tell me don't write anything down which you really do not want to come back and haunt you'
