When I replied and asked you for more information about your problem, I CC’ed my manager for a reason. Because you failed to use “Reply ALL” I had to forward your response to him. So now when he responds (hopefully including you) I’ll have two (or more!) email threads going on the same subject, possibly with vital information broken up and spread across those threads! :mad:
A minor rant, I know, but it irks me.
Too many people already know how to use reply all.
Way too many.
I agree.
But they should use it when appropriate.
Yeah, it’s not clear which is worse - not replying to all when it’s clearly necessary (i.e. I included the whole technical team for a reason) or adding unnecessary recipients until the thread between two or three people has a distribution list of 20.
People have been trained to fear the Reply All option. It’s probably safer that way but less entertaining for onlookers.
Sometimes it is appropriate, sometimes it isn’t, and sometimes it’s hard to know whether or not it is appropriate to use Reply All (I deal with multiple people belonging to a single client company at times, so the issue does arise). If you want to be certain (as certain as quirky human behaviour can be), mention in the body of the e-mail that you are CC’ing your manager in order to include he/she/it in the conversation.
I agree that people don’t seem to know when to use it.
Maybe if you actually wrote “CC: Bossy Boss” in the body of your e-mail, they could figure it out?
If I could “reply all” to that, I would!
Usually I explicitly ask the person to “reply all” if I need them to. It might not be obvious to them that you are expecting them to. Doesn’t always work, but sometimes it does.
And it’s good, real good, that they don’t.
I’ve hit “reply all” once in my life, when my SIL had forwarded a particularly glurgey
and easily debunked POS. I think it was about the kid and the postcards. Anyway, I sent her and all her idiot friends a link to Snopes. I got taken out of her “send all” list right quick.
And almost no-one seems to know how or when to use BC. Ya’know, it’s not OK to spread people’s email addresses to other people who don’t know them.
I can get behind both this rant and the too much use of reply all rant.
A few months ago I was organizing a weekend with several friends and one friend’s new SO kept replying only to the latest sender and then complaining I was ignoring his suggestions to my friend.
90% of the emails he sent went to other people. Moron. He was a short timer thank god.
Now if they can just be trained to stop using it when replying to a group text message.
That reminds me of my favorite anecdote from back when e-mail was still (relatively) new.
Group E-mail
“Hey guys, don’t hit reply all, it’s really annoying.”
Reply All
“Why not?”
Reply All
“Because then everyone has to read every little exchange.”
Reply All
“We shouldn’t do what?”
Reply All
“You shouldn’t hit reply all!”
Reply All
“I like reply all!”
and on, and on. I think it was the longest e-mail exchange we ever had.
I agree with the OP…when I cc somebody I do it for a reason and want them to be included in the reply.
I suppose some organizations are shuch that a cc is a formality and being kept apprised of the situation is not expected…I’ve never really dealt with that.
Now some folks may cc others for no good reason at all…that is a totally different issue.
What if your reply is to tell the sender that the CC had already - handled/ snuck behind his back and fixed/ fucked up/ forbid/ ignored/ married - the situation
This is timely for me. Some poor schmuck in my agency used the wrong group email yesterday and somehow cc’ed the entire department all the way up to the agency head, every branch office all around the country, and all of our separate sub-agencies.
And 20 minutes later, sure enough, someone hit reply-all and copied all of those same recipients to say, “I think you copied me by mistake.”
:smack:
Yes, yes, a thousand times YES!!
I really don’t want my personal email address shared with everyone in your address book when you mass mail the latest news of your new grandbaby’s BM.
The depressing thing is when people at high sophisticated high-tech companies do this. Repeatedly. My revision to an OS would be to shoot several hundred volts through the mouse of anyone who replies all with “unsubscribe me from this mailing list” when unsubscribe instructions are clearly defined.
A former CEO of my high tech Fortune 500 company noted in his on-line radio broadcast once that replying all was not going to be looked at favorably at rating time.
Don’t buy gas on Thursday, this will send a message to the oil companies.
Reply all
That’s a great idea, nobody buy gas on Thursday.
Reply all
OK
Reply all
I like this idea.
Reply all
Great idea, but can I be taken off of this list?
Reply all
Me too, it’s slowing down my e-mail. Take me off of the list.
Reply all
I too would like to be taken off of this list.
Reply all
Does anybody know why Outlook is so slow this morning?
Reply all
Don’t buy gas on Thursday.
Reply all
Please take me off of this list too.
Reply all
Will everyone stop mailing this stuff to me? Why am I getting all of these e-mails?
Reply all
I would also like to be taken off of this list.
Reply all
:mad:
This went on all morning, in a company of about 60,000.