Thursday, April 09, 2009

Pet peeves... e-mail edition

This isn't the normal rant about student e-mails... I have the standard assortment of student-email complaints...

no, this one is about BNCC faculty and staff...

and the dreaded "everyone" e-mails.

Really, I don't mind the original "everyone" e-mail. The messages generally have decent grammar, spelling and punctuation. They also are usually brief and serve to communicate information. In short, they are exactly what e-mails are supposed to be.

No - my problem is with the folks who cannot tell the difference between the "reply" and the "reply to all" options. On occasion the "reply to all" is serves a function -- and that occasion would be when ALL of us care about the information in the message. Otherwise, I don't want to see your individual reply to the author -- volunteering to wipe asses at 4:00 or asking for a turkey sandwich at BNCC re-education day. Many of y'all are repeat offenders -- STOP IT!

I think everyone who confuses the "reply to all" with the "reply" options ought to owe each one of the recipients $1.00 -- to be paid in person during duty days.

2 comments:

M said...

This has been a problem on our campus, too, and recently erupted. Our IT Committee is now looking into options including who has the ability to send campus-wide email.

Inside the Philosophy Factory said...

Maybe restrictions would work to solve the problem, if the "reply to all" button just wouldn't function to "all faculty" e-mails.

I really don't have a problem with the initial e-mail, but every one seems to make a couple of folks forget the difference between 'reply' and 'reply to all'.