Email pet peeves

I think it's safe to say that email is both a blessing and a curse, especially at work. It's hard to imagine doing business without it, and yet, an increasing part of our work day is spent sifting through all the crap in our inboxes.

This article from MSN talks about a study done over the summer asking professionals what their biggest email pet peeve is. There was a tie for number one on the list between the dreaded "Reply All," and receiving gigantic attachments, often for no reason.

Reply All sucks because often the original email has abso-smurfly nothing to do with you, and yet somehow you get stuck in the endless string of replies, forwards and other bits of uselessness.

And stupid forwards are annoying enough, but getting the ones with 2, 5 or more megabyte attachments are the worst. Lately it's gotten to the point where it is litterally filling up my wife's email box. She's limited to 5 MB of storage (whaddya want for nothin'?) and two messages from friends filled her inbox to capacity. Unbelievable.

Something that's not on the list, but should be is folks that don't put a subject line, or put something completely unrelated to the message. Silly subjects are fine for personal communications, but for business, tell me what the message is about or I will likely ignore you. You've been warned.