None of these examples are what I was talking about. I cc’ed one other person, not an entire list, and there was no reason on God’s green earth for the recipient to assume anything other than that I wanted him in on the conversation. In the future I’ll make it clear that I’m copying someone who should be included in any response.
I get what you’re talking about, I was just giving a real life example of the opposite.
When people get errors on our system here, we give them a link to report it. That sends an e-mail to four of us. There are two of us who are equipped to solve the problem. I hate it when my coworker replies that the problem has been fixed, but doesn’t reply all. Hey, I could still be working on the problem!
Ideally, we should be using a ticket system rather than the current informal system of emails, phone calls, or sticking your head in my office. But that’s a rant for another day.
We don’t get enough complaints to warrant that here, but reply all is not that hard!
+1
The reply-all chains of people complaining about how everyone else’s reply-alls are really annoying are so funny to me. Something about the complete lack of self-awareness that goes into crafting such an email.
A few years ago, a wildfire alert email list was set up incorrectly and allowed anyone to send to it, which led to the cascading reply-all idiocy chain. My favorite was a woman who wrote that she was unsubscribing because “[she] didn’t want to waste her time reading the opinions of all the people on this list.” The rest of us on the list, though, were certainly lucky to hear from her, so we’d know why she was unsubscribing.
The best accidental use of this was when my company sent out a group-wide, as in several hundred people, email about helping out on Saturday for Habitat For Humanity.
A friend cc’ed about five of us, but forgot to remove the group alias, with this reply:
“Fuck that!”
There was also the Bedlam DL3 storm in my company, which was epic in its utter failure and cluelessness. What tech-ignorant company was this, you ask? Microsoft.
I’d say ha ha stupid Microsoft except the same thing happened at Bell Labs, sparked by someone sending out information about a picnic in Naperville to a BL-wide list. I’d like to think that only non-computer savvy users participated, but I have no evidence of it.
Bryan thinks he’s clever.
If you and I are exchanging emails, and suddenly another name, which I don’t know, is added, I may very well purposely leave that person off of my reply. I send off tons of emails a day that include sensative business information. I have no idea who “Fred W Wilbers” is that you added to the mailing address. I don’t know if he wants, or should have this information.
In a face-to-face or telephone conversation, you introduce anyone that you add. Do the same thing on an email please. “I’m adding my boss to the email list. Please include him in the reply. Thanks”
I can’t argue with the OP very well because I don’t know the details of his situation, but I will say that on a large project I was helping on there were a few times after I had completed a major subgoal that I CC’ed a senior person at the client company as well as my direct contacts just to let him know the progress as well. I got replies from my direct contacts that weren’t also CC’ed to the same senior person and I wasn’t in the least surprised; no need to keep cluttering his mailbox.
PS Sorry to be a little cryptic and I would probably make a little more sense if I wasn’t so cryptic, but this is getting perilously close to revealing too much information that could theoretically violate my “semi-anonymity” on this board.
I rarely notice if mail I get has also gone to someone else. The whole top of the email has become about as noticable as an advertising banner to me, I usually just focus on the body of the email. If someone wants me to reply all I prefer they mention it in the email.
I didn’t mean to say that one should reply-all every time.
I just consider reply-all the starting point and then determine whether I really want everyone in on the content.
Any time I change the recipients of an email chain, I comment, both so the new people know why they’ve just been thrust into the middle of a conversation and so the previous recipients know who’s listening. For example:
“Adding Bob because he knows the answer to question 2”
“Removing Jim and Sue because they can’t make it to the meeting.”
I don’t know if this is or should be standard email etiquette, but it’s pretty useful.
For my company, it was decided that since people don’t know how to use ‘reply all’ that technology would be used to intervene. Groups and distribution lists have tightly limited approved senders, so it’s impossible for recipients to reply. We haven’t had a mail storm since this went into effect.
Someone at my company responded to an email that the CEO had sent out with her opinion that the CEO should STFU. Using reply all by accident.
Still, occasionally a person does these things by accident, thinking that she is just…oh, for example…telling her sister that their mom’s passive-aggressive bitchiness is a major annoyance, only to find out that she sent it to everyone who had been included on the original email, including their mom.
“Adding Bob because I know he hates Reply All”
I have this one idiot construction contractor who is all but computer illiterate. The only way he knows how to send out an email is to reply to that person’s last email they sent him.
So every time he wants to send an email message out to my whole team, he writes to each person separately, all with random subjects that have nothing to do with his reason for writing. Then when each of my subordinates receives their individual email, they feel obligated to forward it to me to make sure I got it.
I really wish this contractor would figure out how to use email. :rolleyes:
(This is the same contractor who couldn’t figure out why his copy of Excel stopped working 30 days after he bought his new computer.)
I can’t fucking believe this. A professional organization to which I belong is polling a 46-member group on a policy issue. The votes are completely uninteresting to anyone but the sender and the teller. There is no lobbying, no discussion, and no need to be aware of anyone else’s vote.
And yet, these highly intelligent professionals, well schooled in the use of e-mail are . . . “Replying to all”.
I don’t need to see “I vote yes” 46 times!
My favorite “reply to all” anecdote:
I work at the corporate headquarters for a very large retail chain. Our Product Sourcing department gets loads of sample merchandise from suppliers, and will occasionally give stuff away to employees or charity. We’re talking stuff under $10 for the most part.
So one day, they have a huge stack of brand-new discount women’s jeans in various sizes, and they send an email to the 1100 corporate employees saying that if you’d be interested in a pair of jeans, respond to the sender with your size and if they have it you can buy a pair for $5.
That afternoon at least six women replied to the entire company with their pants size. :o