No Response Can Be a Response

Every single day I get e-mails that cause me to shake my head is disbelief. I read them and think that if someone spoke to me in person in that manner — there would be trouble. But of course, they probably wouldn’t do the same in person. In many cases these e-mailers don’t mean to be demanding or terse; in person they would make additional efforts to avoid that from happening.

My natural inclination has always been to reply to everyone who e-mails me, to share my POV, help them to understand how they are being perceived, double-check if the tone and intent relayed may be my misinterpretation. Unfortunately, after over a decade of taking that stance, it has become increasingly clear that approach is simply no longer prudent or productive.

When folks are rude, demanding and terse clearly making no effort to communicate with clarity or even include basic courtesies in their request, I don’t reply at all. Why should the onus be on me to make an effort when none are being made by the other side? Just because I am easily accessible doesn’t mean I have to reply to every single e-mail that comes my way.

Web site owners are increasingly taking this position as site visitors clog their inbox with requests that have no detail, are filled with typos and poor grammar, making demands or accusations that are impossible and/or inaccurate. How you e-mail can be a sure sign that you may be a difficult customer to attain/maintain, so why encourage additional contact by responding?

As we all find that our inboxes are increasingly being filled with more messages that require our attention and time to respond to, it is common sense to realize that not all messages will warrant the time for us to respond. For those who are unable to e-mail with “knowledge, understanding and courtesy”, I simply no longer have the time to give them the benefit of the doubt or take the time to try to change their ways. I’d rather spend my time responding to those who contact me in a manner that let’s me know that my time and input will be appreciated.

That is why E-mail Etiquette is so important when e-mailing those you do not know to ensure you are taken seriously thereby increasing your chances of receiving a response. Because, if you don’t want to make these efforts, know that no response actually is their response.

Is E-mail Etiquette a Choice?

From some of the anonymous e-mail I’ve received lately, many seem to believe E-mail Etiquette is something they can choose to practice or not. One in particular “…quit telling people what to do — email is not meant for rules — its their choice if they want to use your so called email etiquette crap!” That, my friends, is an example of an actual e-mail received yesterday.

Yes, it’s true — life is full of choices. Yes, e-mail can be informal; informal applying only to personal e-mails. “Informal” shouldn’t be used as an excuse to be rude, lazy or to not use the education you received in grade school. And, by the way, there is nothing informal about Business E-mails — believing that is risky at best! What E-mail Etiquette basically covers is a simple set of common courtesies everyone can follow to ensure they are using technology properly, being perceived positively and are a joy to communicate with. What is so wrong with that concept?

To make the choice to ignore common courtesies says allot about a person — on or off-line. And what it says will be left to be determined by the folks who are the receiving end of those who feel it is not necessary to make an effort to apply the basics discussed here and on my various sites.

Yes, it is your choice to not make these minuscule extra efforts to reflect courtesy for those you communicate with. Just as it is your choice to affect how you will be perceived.

“The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.”
George Eliot (1819 - 1880)

E-mail Sent to Wrong Person

This weekend I received several panicked e-mailers asking my advice and help as to what they should do being they had sent e-mails to the wrong person. “Can I get the e-mail back?” Nope.

One was typing about the “wrong person” in a not too kind manner to another friend and inadvertently copied the “wrong person” on their diatribe (Poetic justice?). The other hit Reply to All sending comments about, but not directed to, one of those that were included in “All.”

Once an e-mail is sent it is sent. Nothing to do when these type of things happen but to grovel and humbly apologize. If it is someone you really care about, you’ll call them on the phone and/or apologize in person.

This situation, which surprisingly happens quite often, can easily be avoided by following two simple steps:

1. Don’t be a gossip in your e-mail. If you can’t type something nice about someone whose address you do have in your address book; then don’t type anything at all. Typing behind someone’s back is just as dishonorable online as it is off-line.
2. Do not add any addresses in the To field until after you have composed the message to your satisfaction. Ignore the Reply to All button all together; never use it.

The onus is on you to determine how the aftermath is handled. You can regain some of the lost trust and lack of character your actions exhibited by being sincere and swift with your apology. Do not offer excuses. Do the right thing by offering your apology and then make a point of never being in too much of a hurry to not pay attention to what you are doing!

Spammers Using Your E-mail Address?

A site visitor was curious and pondered:

I am receiving “Returned emails” that I never sent to begin with, yet it has my email address on it. Some of it seems like it has references to porn junk on it. I have contacted my ISP, no response yet from them. My worry is that it appears someone has hijacked my email address and is sending spurious porn mails out to people I have never heard of and I will get the blame for it…! How to I track these thugs down, or stop this process. My business runs on this email address and I don’t want to have to change it, whose to say it can’t happen again.

What has most likely happened is someone you have e-mailed in the past has a virus that has farmed all the e-mail addresses it can find on their system and is now sending out e-mail with those addresses in the From: field. Their computer is now a “zombie” for the virus or worm.

You may not hear from and ISP when you e-mail them — they are swamped with e-mails of this nature and just address them. What you want to do is scan your computer and make sure you are not the one that is infected.

Don’t worry about being blamed. It is pretty much common knowledge that spammers and virus creators are the culprits when this kind of thing happens. And the adult e-mail is most likely a farce that the virus is generating to just be a trouble maker. For those who know how to read e-mail headers they can very easily determine the e-mail did not originate from your account and/or ISP.

There are sites like SpamCop.net where you can input the entire e-mail and headers and they track down the responsible parties if possible and report them to their ISP. However, if it is virus generated, there are no “thugs” to track down.

It probably will happen again and is part of the current online landscape. As long as there are knuckleheads out there who do not protect themselves from viruses and hackers, there will be those waiting to exploit them.

I can understand your frustration… I really wouldn’t worry about it–I am soooo exposed online that I see my e-mail address on all kinds of things that didn’t come from me and I’ve decided to choose my battles wisely. HTH!

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