Email Etiquette

Friday, June 20, 2008

We have a user email list at work that people can send mail to and have it distributed based on some permission algorithm that I don’t understand. It’s convenient for system status updates and whatnot. Today, someone with a higher admin level than I would have expected him to have sent an email FROM that email address to about 60 people. Within thirty seconds, I had fourteen autoreply emails from people on the list who were out of the office. Within ten minutes, the number had jumped to 29. First of all, why in the world are 50% of the people in that organization (The State Department) who use our tool out of the office? Second of all, who sends an email FROM a group address? It just means that any replies go to all, even if the replier doesn’t hit “reply all”. Third of all, it’s 3pm on Friday. I should totally not be thinking about work anymore.

Posted in: complaint , email , work