It’s time to bitch about email.  I spend the majority of my workday reading and writing email.  When I’m not doing that I’m

working on projects I’m going to send by email.  I use email a lot.  I want to bitch about it.   What’s my big email problem? Nonsense email.  That’s my big email problem. 

Nonsense email is what I call all the email that crowds up my inbox that didn’t need to be sent in the first place.  There’s tons of different categories that nonsense email can be grouped into.  Right now but I’m going to focus on the two I hate the most.  They are “thank you” and “I’ll get back to you” emails. 

Thank You Emails

I’m not talking about the “Thank you for meeting with me today so I could try to sell you my useless product” email.  While I do consider this to be nonsense email I tolerate it because that’s what you have to do if you’re in sales.  No.  I’m talking about the one word “thanks” email.  Granted, sometimes a “thanks” email is merited.  I’ll admit I send them myself on occasion, usually in response to an email with information I’ve been hounding the person about for weeks.  And sometimes at the end of a lengthy email discussion chain a “thanks” from your manager or an executive is a nice wrap up. 

But there are people, and we all work with them, who overuse the “thanks” email.  I get them all the time from the same people.  Sometimes they are directed to me specifically or worse, they are a “thanks” spamming me and 50 other people on the same email chain.  I hate this!  It’s a waste of time and energy. 

Don’t try to justify this with the old “you want to acknowledge that you’ve received the email” excuse.  As the sender of the originating email let me assure you, I know you received my email and if I want you to acknowledge that you’ve received it I’ll ask. 

I’ll get back to you Emails

I get these in response to emails I send to people asking for information.  They say things like “Let me look into this and get back to you”  and they usually come back within minutes of the request.  Like the one word “thanks” emails, they usually come from the same people. 

Once again people try to justify this type of nonsense by saying “I am very busy and I can’t always get people their information right away.”  As the sender of the email who is also very busy let me give you a tip:  If you stop wasting time sending nonsense emails you might be more efficient. 

I’d like to say I hate these emails more than the “thanks” emails but for the fact that “I’ll get back to you” emails actually serve a purpose.  Nine times out of ten the person doesn’t get back to me as promised.  Luckily I have their written statement that I can reply back to three days later reminding them to get me my information.  If I’m feeling particularly bitchy I’ll cc the boss. 

 

I don’t hate nonsense emails just because they waste time and crowd my inbox.  I hate them more because they are a sign of  what the corporate world has become: a group of people with short attention spans desperately trying to assure the world that they are, in fact, productive and working.  I’d like to expand on this point but first…

Let me look in this and get back to you.

Thanks! 

 

 

*Image by RambergMediaImages  (CC BY-SA 2.0)