I recently purchased a PC and began to wonder: are there general guidelines regarding the use of e-mail in a business and home setting? A co-worker recently sent me an e-mail I thought was far too long–equivalent to 2 typewritten pages.
What are the general guidelines re: length, tone, number of attachments, etc. etc.?
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Length is subjective I think. I don’t mind long emails, as long as they are bona fide letters and not spam.
It irks how some people go postal when they receive email. Sure, if you are getting 10-20 pieces of spam daily then you might have a reason to be miffed. But to sit down & compose a response to somebody just because you happened to receive an email that wasn’t meant for you??
It takes about .25 seconds for me to hit my delete key when I get mis-directed email, but on several occasions I have received nasty-grams from other people just because I CC’d them on one of my emails. A particularly nasty response I got back:
Lord have mercy was that necessary?
Now to the OP. If I receive a long wordy email, I had better recognize the sender by looking at the headder. If I don’t, I am almost certainly going to hit my delete key without even opening the message.
Now if somebody you know starts sending you boring emails of epic proportions, I suggest taking the matter up with that person directly.
To keep email short & succinct, use hyperlinks instead of c&p’ing entire articles.
*[sub]Epilogue: The employee was subsequently reprimanded for violating our code of business conduct (basically, the “don’t be a jerk” rule). :D[/sub]