Rather than venting over work, all it takes is a little humor. Notice how I did not attach the name of any coworker to each of the “tips” below…
10 – Choose a fancy background with an intricate font. And make it as hard as possible to decipher your message!
9 – Lack courtesy … and share your misery. No greeting, no thank you. Or better, include “Thank you” or “Regards” in your signature. Now, that’s fancy.
8 – Forgo the signature, always. Why would your coworkers, vendors, and clients want to get to you?
7 – Write like you text, a lot. Acronyms and ALL CAPS are big favorites. Don’t bother capitalizing the beginning of your sentences, not worth it.
6 – Venture off-topic. Responding to an email while addressing a totally different matter is loads of fun. But be sure to leave the subject line intact.
5 – Don’t send the attachments. Very reliable test to verify your audience is paying attention.
4 – Write a lot more than necessary. In multiple emails, if possible. Don’t you love wasting people’s time?
3 – Make sure your attachments are NEVER printer-friendly. Paper is recyclable after all!
2 – Indulge with misspellings. Practice makes perfect, you’ll see, so don’t worry about the spell-check.
1 – Abuse the Urgent attribute. The red exclamation point looks quite the part. Don’t you wish Outlook offered more clipart options to personalize your messages?
Would you like to share your coworkers’ most annoying email habit? Please leave a comment!
Stay in the loop! Subscribe to my posts via email to the right to get post updates directly in your inbox. Thanks for visiting!
One more: Make sure to hit Reply All even though you just want to say thanks or only want to reply to one person. Everyone else is so excited to get the extra email in their email box!
Good one! One of the VPs at my office once distributed an Email Etiquette policy to the entire company (by email), only to be the biggest offender that very same day. And countless well-intentioned HR people passed the document on to several Outlook subgroups made up of the same people, duplicating the “policy” emails as many times… How ironic
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Annette Mattice, Maryline O. Maryline O said: Don't miss this post: 10 Email Tips to Maximize Counter-Performance http://bit.ly/ctMsNH [...]
Fancy backgrounds annoy me. I check my mail on my blackberry. I have to remember to view my mail as text only when I get one from someone who likes to decorate their mail.
Reply to all can be funny. The best is when someone does a reply to all, and someone responds with their own reply to all that says “Please take me off your mailing list”.
Completely agree on both counts!
Talking about decorating emails, I hate it the most when it’s in tune with the season — hmm, jingle bells, no thanks!
#5 is me! I always forget the attachment. I even have a plugin of some sort that reminds me if I’ve noted an attachment in the text but haven’t attached anything. Hello form the 31DBBB! Cathy http://www.goodhiker.com
I’m pretty sure this happens to all of us, but for some people, I swear it’s a hobby
I did hear about the plugin and I would use it if my work laptop allowed the download…
Thanks for visiting!
I pretty much am fluent in all the points. Why not? I got plenty of time to be annoying.
eh eh! Tommee, you’ll never change. But I will admit this: those that truly master the art of being annoying can sometimes be very funny. I’m just glad we don’t work together
I’m #4… always write a novel when answering to an email thread… argh
Faute avouée à moitié pardonnée (the fault you admit committing is already half-way forgiven)
[...] Most views: http://www.francoamericandream.com/10-email-tips-to-maximize-counter-performance/ [...]