Sometimes I wonder... Other times I know.
Monday, June 05, 2006
 
Email To: line etiquette
A developer and I recently had lunch where I recanted a recent encounter with a co-worker.

Earlier in the day, I had sent an email out to a group of co-worked on a project I'm participating in. One of the recipients replied directly to me and questioned the way in which I had ordered the To: line recipients in the email. In a tone which clearly indicated their irritation, they wanted to know why they were third instead of first on the list. So, for example, why I chose to do: To: a@foo.com; b@foo.com; c@foo.com instead of c, a, b.

On a day to day basis, it rarely occurs to me to think about the order in which I address my To: line recipients. With the exception of emails sent to senior levels of the company, I don't spend the effort carefully measuring an arbitrary metric as to who should go first, middle and last in my emails.

Back to the developer at lunch, he was genuinely shocked that I wasn't practicing good To: recipient email etiquette. In fact, he told me that he would be insulted if I had made this blunder with him.

I asked then, "what is the correct email To: line recipient etiquette?" To which he recited no less than 3 different algorithms.

Here is one: Stack rank the recipients in the descending order by role. So, General Managers first, then Product Unit Managers, then Discipline Managers, then leads, then individual contributors.

You can easily extrapolate a variety of other algorithms. Each of which might or might not be known to the recipients.... clearly making this an exercise in futility.

I'm going to be a bit harsh, but personally, I think this is a specialized form of a pissing contest. Did you get the email? Great.

However, to those who I might have been insulted in the past, I apologize. You can feel free to put me last, first, in the middle of your To: line, I really don't care. But I'm not going to spend any cycles on "correctly" sorting email aliases.

To mitigate, I created a distribution group (which sorts alphabetically) and no longer run the danger of stepping on any toes.

- posted by # posted by Dennis Pilarinos : 11:48 PM  
Comments:
Reason #1001 to run away.
# posted by Dave Quick : 9:35 PM
 
Personally, I'd be pissed off too! Because... well, I take everything personally. When things like this start happening at work then we're in for some big trouble if we don't address the problem right away. And the problem is that you should know that I take everything personally and adjust your emails to make me feel better. Otherwise, you're in for some trouble

This is how your trouble is gonna go:

First, line etiquette is not observed. My feelings of resent will start to rise. At recess when we're playing California Kickball, guess who's a team captain? ME!! That's right, cause it's my damn ball! And you're gonna be picked LAST. So how you like that "Mr. Fancy pants"?

By the time lunch rolls around you're gonna be sitting all alone in the cafeteria drinking your milk. You'll be pissed at that so you'll put a "kick me" sign on my back.... oooh that's it! Now it's on.

OK dude, now it's serious... you and me. After school. In the parking lot. Bring your tricycle.

......

well, that's just my take on it. Poor email To: line etiquette is bad, mmkay? You got to show respect for the people you send emails to, mmkay? Drugs are bad, mmkay? Don't do drugs, cause drugs are bad, mmkay?
# posted by Dave "always picked last in dodgeball" Grabowski : 1:08 AM
 
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