Readers Respond: What Email Etiquette Hint Do You Wish Others Would Follow?

What irks you most about email etiquette not followed, or followed too much perhaps?

What email etiquette hint do you most wish others would follow? Share Your Pet Peeve

Reply ALL

I think this Reply ALL attitude is not always right as the Manager might send to all staff but if the staff would like to send only the Manager why does he need to click Reply All so....I disagree with Reply ALL is Better

—Guest Ron

Etiquette #26

Do not arrive at my desk before your email does and then hover over me while I read what you wrote. Or worse, tell me what you wrote as I'm trying to read it.

—Guest Jack St. Clair

Resending a link…

I find it extremely annoying when someone knows you sent them a link (url) and they don't know where it is so they email or call you to send it to them again. (Usually repeatedly) If I can find it in my sent items to send again, then you should be able to either favorite the link yourself or manage your OWN inbox and be able to find the link again without bothering me to repeatedly send you the same link over and over again.

—Guest JB

First Name in Subject by Unknown Sellers

I hate when a seller I don't know puts my first name in the subject line -- like "Hey Alice -- you'll love what I just sent you." Fortunately, I can usually tell and delete without opening.

—Guest Alice Kovler

Not responding and you're in leadership.

I wish recipient would reply to an email especially if they are in a leadership capacity. How long does one have to wait for a response?

—Guest Elizabeth Gwynn

Please ANSWER me

How is it that I rarely get an answer at ALL, let alone one that (OMG!) addresses everything I brought up in my original message? How many episodes of being ignored does someone encounter before taking the hint and ceasing to communicate with that person ?

—IBikeNY

Ending an e-mail with a "Thank You"

It is so irritating to read an e-mail response, even if it is a direct command to complete a task, to end it with a Thank You" or "Thank You in advance". "Thank You" is used only after one has completed task, not before.

—Guest Efrain

See reply in red bold italics

OMG! This drives me crazy. Replying to All with "see my reply in Red" or whatever the chosen differentiation may be. You should know how to form sentences and paragraphs. If you must go back and forth with someone to clarify points, please do without copying in the whole world. Clarify between yourselves and then let us know what the consensus is without it being a myriad of colors, characters, fonts and styles.

—Guest Alan

Reply to All

I strongly disagree with point 3. Yes, there are cases when you shouldn't use reply to all, e.g. if someone sends email with a direct question to many people and only the sender is to know the answers. But in almost all cases, especially in business communication, sender is the one who decides who needs to know the answer - that's why he puts someone to CC in the first place! The one answering has mostly no clue who (in the other company) has to know the answer. So reply-to-all IS good default behavior!

—Guest martan

Reply vs Original eMail

I think emails should be answered within seven days, not 3 months. I think a “reply email” used in personal correspondence is very rude. It is like receiving a card or letter in the mail, reading it and writing a note on it and sending it back to the sender in the same envelope with the same postage stamp and marked on the outside “return to sender”. When people only send “reply emails”, and never generate an original email, it tells me the replier is lazy and has no original thoughts of their own. It is a one-sided friendship.

—EmailSmart

Llloooonnnnggggg Subject Line

i hate when people type everything they have to say in the subject line of an email… Hello! That's what the bottom part of the page is for.

—Guest lisa

Abbreviating Text Messages

i dislike reading emails with abbreviated text. It makes the whole messages appear so ambiguously. It kept me guessing what the writer actually meant, because it could convey the wrong impression to me [other] than what the writer has in mind.

—Guest Iyke joe

Forwarding emails

I hate to get the emails saying forward or send to 10 people in the next hour and something will happen, as a result in travels through the work place, and you usually get the same email five or six times, before it finally stops.

—Guest Guest Carolyn

Do Your Own Out Outlook Calendaring

Biggest pet peeve is people insisting that I sent them an Outlook calendar reminder. First, I happen to use Outlook but that doesn't mean I'm your secretary. Second, isn't that your own calendaring task? It's insulting to be asked to maintain somebody else's calendar when I have my own to maintain.

—Guest San Diego Observer

Why Don't Some People Fill In Subjects?

The subject line is important to me, it enables a quick review when I'm looking for items to action or leave until a more convenient or appropriate time. Also if I receive a forward where the original message had no subject line it would be nice to see Action please for XYZ or This may interest you from ABC not just FWD: [ ] It annoys me when this is left blank in both personal and work related messages. Hey I'm not opening your message speedily if I don't know what it is about, when other people do the obvious and indicate the subject of their message. This is my biggest irritant when opening my emails' inboxes.

—Luvverly