As I am finally able to tame the inbox for the client that I switched from part-time to full-time, I noticed some strange habits. Time for a rant about people's use and misuse of Outlook.
Read Receipts
Why does anyone choose to send a read receipt with an email? Anytime I get the pop-up box, I always cancel it. I never use read receipts, and it annoys me when other people use them. Why would I care if/when you read my email? If you read it great, if not so what? It's no skin off my nose. I have way too many other things to deal with to care about whether you clicked on my email.
Copy the world leads to reply-all hell
People love copying the world on emails. This leads to a cascade of replies that you may or may not need to see because everyone uses reply-all.
Aside - Do you know that CC stands for Carbon Copy? This phrase originates from the days when carbon paper was used to make copies of documents. A piece of carbon paper was placed between the top original document and the duplicate underneath. The hard press of the pen/pencil transferred the carbon to the page underneath creating a carbon copy. I knew a director who was the only person I ever heard say, "Please carbon me on that email."
Low priority emails
I saw an email flagged with an arrow pointing down. It turns out this is an email deliberately sent as "low importance." Thanks for flagging an email that I won't read. I understand and have used the red exclamation point for "high importance." Importance is in the eye of the beholder, but at least there is a way to flag an email that you think is of high importance for you or the recipients. But who cares about low-importance emails? Why designate that? I'm looking for any excuse not to read your emails, and marking them as low importance gives me the perfect escape hatch.
Bad subjects
I'm not the best at writing headlines for my posts, but at least I know how to write the subject line of an email. People will type anything in the subject line, whether it has anything to do with the actual email or not. I'll even change the subject line on an email thread to make it more meaningful.
Document not saved
I have been guilty of opening a Word doc that was attached to an invite, modifying the document, and then losing the changes. Where does this document live and where do the changes go? I've learned my lesson on this one. Save As and put that bad boy someplace where you'll be able to find it. Just keep AutoSave on, you say? Nope, AutoSave has screwed me more times than it's helped me. I know how to save my documents.
Read Receipts
Why does anyone choose to send a read receipt with an email? Anytime I get the pop-up box, I always cancel it. I never use read receipts, and it annoys me when other people use them. Why would I care if/when you read my email? If you read it great, if not so what? It's no skin off my nose. I have way too many other things to deal with to care about whether you clicked on my email.
Copy the world leads to reply-all hell
People love copying the world on emails. This leads to a cascade of replies that you may or may not need to see because everyone uses reply-all.
Aside - Do you know that CC stands for Carbon Copy? This phrase originates from the days when carbon paper was used to make copies of documents. A piece of carbon paper was placed between the top original document and the duplicate underneath. The hard press of the pen/pencil transferred the carbon to the page underneath creating a carbon copy. I knew a director who was the only person I ever heard say, "Please carbon me on that email."
Low priority emails
I saw an email flagged with an arrow pointing down. It turns out this is an email deliberately sent as "low importance." Thanks for flagging an email that I won't read. I understand and have used the red exclamation point for "high importance." Importance is in the eye of the beholder, but at least there is a way to flag an email that you think is of high importance for you or the recipients. But who cares about low-importance emails? Why designate that? I'm looking for any excuse not to read your emails, and marking them as low importance gives me the perfect escape hatch.
Bad subjects
I'm not the best at writing headlines for my posts, but at least I know how to write the subject line of an email. People will type anything in the subject line, whether it has anything to do with the actual email or not. I'll even change the subject line on an email thread to make it more meaningful.
Document not saved
I have been guilty of opening a Word doc that was attached to an invite, modifying the document, and then losing the changes. Where does this document live and where do the changes go? I've learned my lesson on this one. Save As and put that bad boy someplace where you'll be able to find it. Just keep AutoSave on, you say? Nope, AutoSave has screwed me more times than it's helped me. I know how to save my documents.
And i'm old enough to know the
With some widely used product such as Outlook you'd think you could trust