I get a lot of e-mail. And somewhere, between all the subscriptions to time wasting newsletter, I get a few annoying ones from real people. Some real people are welcome to mail me about anything at any time. In fact, some of these real people read, subscribe and support my blog. This does not apply to them and they are granted automatic forgiveness on all the below mistakes.
But for those people with a compulsion to hit ‘send’ without thought for me, please consider the below:
- NEVER use your name in the subject line as the subject. This is to be used for the contents of the mail, not as an introduction. You’re name appears next to the mail, I don’t need to see it twice. Please stop it now!
- DO NOT phone me to find out if I received your mail. I will reply IF necessary and when I have time. You are not the only person sending me stuff. It’s much more important that I need to be looking at. Like videos about baby donkeys and funny pictures.
- I find religious holiday mails offensive. STOP sending me ‘feel good’ mails about the baby Jesus and counting my blessings over Easter and Christmas. Especially if I have no idea who you are and am unfortunate enough to be on your mailing list. What if I was a Satanist or Jewish?
- The recall option ONLY works on an internal server and if the mail has not been read and only for people in your office. If you fuck up and send me the wrong thing, I will be getting that mail, 10 mails of you trying to recall it in a panic and your revisions of the original mail. That counts for at least 20 emails that I have to wade through. It’s annoying. Don’t do it.
- If I don’t know who you are I will not accept your meeting request. The correct procedure for setting up a meeting is to introduce yourself, send through your proposal and WAIT for me to get back to you. Keep in mind that I would probably want my colleagues in the meeting with me – this means I have to coordinate three diaries and it’s dependent on how badly we want to see you.
Antithetical 