420 Creative - Portland Web Design Studio

The Most Annoying Things You Can Do With Your Email

Nov 07 2006

Angie Herrera

Technology

Here we are, a month-and-a-half (give or take) away from 2007 and we're still not getting it.
  1. Include an image as part of your signature. I don't want it and you're wasting bandwidth - yours and mine.
  2. One-word replies. Is it really that important to write "Thanks!" and nothing else?
  3. Put your entire recipient list in either the "To:" or "CC:" field. Shall I broadcast your phone number to marketers?
  4. Use Outlook's stationery. Not everyone uses Outlook. And for those of us that don't, it just comes over as an attachment. Ugh. See number 1.
  5. Poor punctuation. Seriously, when did ellipses (...) and hyphens replace periods and question marks?
  6. Leave out the subject line. I'm going to assume it's not important or it gets filtered to junk.
  7. High-priority flags. If it's that important, pick up the phone.
  8. The 18-line sig about all the Bad Things that will happen to me if I ever reveal the contents of your privileged, confidential (and unencrypted) message. Attorneys, I'm looking at you.
  9. Send an attachment with no message. Especially if I have no idea you're going to send me something.
  10. Send multiple attachments in one message. If it's more than two, zip it! (Or, if you prefer, StuffIt.
  11. Put someone on your mailing list without telling him/her. Just because you have an email address doesn't mean you should add it to your mailing list. That's called spamming.
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