[:plant:] Thanks, but no thanks

There are two types of people that bug me more than anything else in terms of office email: those who send one word "thanks" emails, and those that put the entire body of their email in the subject line.

I realize that your mother taught you that it's polite to always say thank you, but if everyone did this with emails, our inboxes would explode. Just because I sent you that report you asked for, or added your name to a meeting, doesn't mean you have to send an email thanking me. I understand the sentiment, and if I went out of my way to help you, ok, but don't make me open and delete countless emails just because I did my job. It's a good way to make me delete your emails without reading them.

Becoming more and more common are the folks that type out entire paragraphs in the subject line, and put nothing in the body. I'm guilty of maybe putting a sentence if it's a yes/no question, but if it's going to turn into a back and forth conversation, stop being lazy and put the message where it belongs. Actual email subject I got this morning: "Hi Nutty is [your boss] available after Sr. Policy today at 5pm to speak with [my boss]? They can just meet after Sr. Policy and walk back over together. [YB] wanted to discuss Japan Events with her, but [MB] was on travel yesterday. Thanks!" I want to walk downstairs and slap this person.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I actually like thank-you emails. I don't get them often enough to complain about them, but it's always nice to see that somebody appreciated my hard work and dedication.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

If they're sent sparingly, when you've done something worthy of praise, sure. I'm talking about people who send a thank you every time you do the slightest thing for them. There are people here that will send me multiple thank yous in a day.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The only thing worse than people who reply to emails with "thanks" and then have their name, title, profession, address of work, two phone numbers, a fax number and an alternate email address at the end of the email form... are the people who text message things like "ty" or "hey".

How ya doing, buddy?

Reply to all

Worst thing ever.

I was speaking idiomatically.

SD told me once that someone sent a "I need a hug" in a subject line and accidentally send to all. Fucking hilarious shit right there.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

For us, the 'thanks email' is mostly a way of closing off an email thread for the time being. It almost serves as a punctuation mark. If a client sends us a bunch of edits, we'll respond with a "got it, thanks!" to let them know that we have everything and they needn't worry about us having received their edits. Conversely, our clients will send us a thanks to let us know that they're happy with our latest round of edits and we can move on until we hear from them later.

I've never encountered the massive subject line before, but the biggest annoyance for us in the office is the dreaded red exclamation point. Clients love to use the "highest priority" setting for emails and more often than not, the email is completely unjustified. And then when it is, it's just annoying. We're not exactly swamped with emails constantly, so it's not like we wouldn't get around to it anyway. In the grand scheme of things, it's not really a big deal though.

FELIPE NO

My biggest peeve: when people jump threads. They'll start answering emails from one thread in another thread, and change the subject without starting a new thread but then not even stick to that new subject in the thread and if I start a fresh thread then they'll just keep replying to whatever random thread with my email address in it they happened to set eyes on first.

When you've got a dozen conversations going on, it's really hard to keep track of all of them mentally.

Then again, I sometimes find it hard to keep track of a single conversation that's right in front of me. <.<

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Shade

Reply to all

Worst thing ever.

Global mailing lists. Even worster.

Seriously, email just needs to die. People send email rather than make a phone call or walk over for a face-to-face, and then they get peeved when you don't reply five seconds later. Email is not a substitute for a conversation.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Like lurker, I appreciate thank-you emails. I rarely get them.

I seriously dislike super-long signatures to an email. Contact information is fine, but when you have all sorts of ASCII promo shit in your signature, or even worse, some ridiculous quotes, I find it hard to take the person seriously.

Oh, oh, even better? People who use monotype corsiva for their "signature." They're almost ALWAYS administrative women, who also include fucking flowers or some shit in their sign-off. Annoying as shit. I love contact info in the signature, though. Holy cow, has it saved my ass before.

I can't say I've ever seen anyone put a whole paragraph into a subject line or anything. That would drive me fucking nuts though.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Signatures in Comic Sans.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Thank you emails, despite annoying, is not as annoying as someone who doesn't care to erase the former messages when they reply or forward a message. Particularly when I have to scroll through the garbage knapsack, which fills 98% of the email, to read the reply in the end of the email, which is only a sentence of 5 words. Not even worthy. God.

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Isn't the latest reply at the top? Otherwise you might lose the context of the conversation if you start deleting old parts of it.

Sass brings up an important point about email signatures. Goofy quotes, especially mildly religious ones, are irritating. What's worse is when someone doesn't have an email signature, and you're desperately trying to find a phone number for that person, and realize that it's not in their email like a normal person.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Negro Mountain

If they're sent sparingly, when you've done something worthy of praise, sure. I'm talking about people who send a thank you every time you do the slightest thing for them. There are people here that will send me multiple thank yous in a day.

Don't get me wrong. "Sparingly" and "doing something worthy of praise that isn't any little ol' thing" are not mutually exclusive.

Additional Spam:
Also I use the thank-you email myself like Sprout does, as a "hey I got everything you said, I'll let you know if I need anything further or something else comes up, don't worry about this I got dis shit".

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Sassafrass

I seriously dislike super-long signatures to an email. Contact information is fine, but when you have all sorts of ASCII promo shit in your signature, or even worse, some ridiculous quotes, I find it hard to take the person seriously.

The most common signature that I've seen over the years is like this:

--------------------
First Last | Position
Company
Address
City, State, 10001
P 555-555-5555
M 555-555-5555
F 555-555-5555
email@email.gay
--------------------

Then at the bottom, usually some sort of environmental thing saying "please consider the environment before printing out this email"

Anything more than that tends to be excessive, but I do like having all of that info readily available in the event that I need to get in touch with any clients with the quickness. What annoys me is when they include a small JPEG company logo, because by the time we reach the 20th email in our thread, the attachment list is full of multiple copies of the same 4KB image.

FELIPE NO

That's pretty much exactly what my email sig is, although I set mine to condense it all to one, very small typeface line in replies.

In our office you get a combination of emails, phone calls and just plain old shouting down the corridor, often a combination of all three. I don't really mind short, thank you emails, I just delete them straight from the auto-preview screen in Outlook, don't even open them.

I do really, really hate signatures in a dumb handwriting style font. Also any colours other than black or grey.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I don't do business emails, but I have to follow a google group for my officer candidate class, and yeah, the thanks yous are fucking retarded.

Also, changing the topic mid-thread or not deleting the grandiose opening post when all your post says is "thank you" anyways, quite obnoxious.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The companies I've worked for prefer for their employees to exhibit a singular company identity when working with customers. We all have email signatures that were provided by Marketing which includes the company logo and the information that Sprout indicated. I suppose one could opt out of that, but it's not a winning strategy to step out of line with corporate messaging for something as small as email.

Emails are also a fantastic way to record discussions. Suppose I talk to someone and I'm all "yeah I need the back-up to your payments for the last year by end of day tomorrow" and they're all "hey sure I'll have it tomorrow morning!" and then are all "oh no you said next week." It's nice to have that cover.

I reply with thanks in response to everything I ask someone to do. Like sprout said, it's a useful punctuation that indicates I'm satisfied and have no further questions. I also think it's useful in maintaining the perception of having a positive personality at work. "Thanks, Bob! I appreciate it!" reads peppy.

I do dislike reply all though. We get these company raffles sent to a global mailing list, and invariably 3-4 people reply all to submit their names.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by sprouticus

For us, the 'thanks email' is mostly a way of closing off an email thread for the time being. It almost serves as a punctuation mark. If a client sends us a bunch of edits, we'll respond with a "got it, thanks!" to let them know that we have everything and they needn't worry about us having received their edits. Conversely, our clients will send us a thanks to let us know that they're happy with our latest round of edits and we can move on until we hear from them later.

Pretty much this. Whenever I send out an email to a client and say "Thank you. I got it." it's usually to let them know that I got all the changes or images they requested on a design and it serves as a "OK, I'm on it. Don't write me anymore until I'm done with the current changes." type of warning.

And, for the record, this is my signature that goes out with every email:



I also used to have a short quote at the bottom (Quod sumus, hoc eritis) but I got rid of it because A) I figured some of my clients are probably retarded enough to start an entire conversation asking me what it means and distracting me from my work entirely or B) what Sass said about professionalism.

How ya doing, buddy?

I generally respond to email by sending squads of ninja or singing telegrams depending on my mood. I'm sure either group says thank you when they have concluded their business.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I really don't see what the harm is in a nice polite thank you email. Really how hard is it to read it, feel the warmth of a thank you and then hit the delete button, saving your precious inbox space and clearing away the 'clutter'? I think there are far worse things people spend their time filling inboxes with than simple manner; like when people abuse mailing lists to send an email only intended for a third of the people included, but because it's easier than actually listing the correct set of names in the first place.

How ya doing, buddy?

I understand the main points Negro Mountain is making but I am still going to have to disagree entirely on his proposal that 'thank you' gestures should be removed from correspondence due to time wasted on deleting them.

we currently live in a society filled with selfishness, lack of respect and manners and a lack of gratitude for the good deeds of others. recognizing the good deeds of others (no matter how small) by saying thanks is of utmost importance and the LEAST that should happen. any type of positive reinforcement trumps any supposed efficiency IMO.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Megalith and Lord Styphon are both banned from Gamingforce.

FELIPE NO

I agree that thank-you e-mails can serve as a good punctuation mark to a thread, or confirm receipt of the info and/or materials that were sent. Nobody likes to feel as though they just sent an e-mail into a black hole of empty, unresponsive silence. It can turn into a moment of existential crisis, coupled by feelings of inadequacy and paranoia, along with all sorts of conjectures and speculations...

Of course, none of this has ever happened to me. :-D

Nevertheless, for the benefit of those tender souls amongst us, a thank-you e-mail can be a good thing. :-)

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