E-mail filters rule.
27 04 2009Attention all bosses who send lots and lots of e-mails:
I know that e-mail makes the world go ’round. In fact, I can’t imagine how the world would function without it. But that doesn’t mean I want to get an e-mail from you regarding every single detail of operating our business. When I was working in restaurants, for instance, we would sometimes get 10-15 e-mails per day, most from our district manager. A lot were for simple things like “Keep your tables clean today, gang.”
So, this is a formal request on my part that you stop doing that. And by formal request, I mean that I am issuing fair warning that I will likely be filtering your e-mail address.
That’s right. I won’t even take the time to go through and personally delete your e-mails one at a time. I won’t even give them the personal attention required to click “Delete.” What I will do is tell my e-mail account to delete your e-mails before I ever have to see them. I will treat them the same way I treat spam. As a general rule, if you don’t include a question you expect me to answer or you haven’t attached a document I need to use in the immediate future, do me a favor and don’t e-mail me.
I tell you this now so you won’t be upset at me later for deleting that one e-mail that you needed me to respond to immediately. See, the problem was, you had marked it “Urgent.” Just like all the others you send me. I caught on and realized that you thought that reminding me of a long-standing company policy was an urgent matter.
And that is why e-mail filters rule.
I totally agree! But I am too afraid to auto delete anything…
Hi there T.J. - this is a great conversation starter - as a person who slogs through hundreds of emails, uses dozens of filters, and begs for intelligent subject lines from co-workers I can relate - interesting note though - I tweeted your post a while ago - and the first response was from some pretty savvy recruiters - http://www.yellowdogrecruiting.com - who tweeted back - Missed Opportunities? I would be willing to bet that the old 80/20 rule holds on email abuse too - maybe it makes sense to talk to those offending 20% before you delete them.
Thanks for the insight and candor.
Joni
I believe that the delay in getting your comment through moderation is an excellent illustration of what you’re talking about. (Sorry for the delay, by the way!) I had to slog through 70 spam comments to find the one actual comment in the batch. You make a great point, and it would be a shame if I were to have just automatically filtered it out by disallowing comments.
I really like your idea of approaching the offender with your problem. Interestingly, it’s not something that had ever crossed my mind, so the lesson here might just be that those who are working with young employees should create opportunities to provide that kind of feedback, as some of us wouldn’t think of doing it, and others might be too nervous to bring it up otherwise.
Thanks!