Email Etiquette: "Forward" at your own risk

'Like a chainsaw.'

Great analogy. Or is it a metaphor?

I think a little e-mail etiquette class needs to be standard for everyone. You may be tempted to always "foward it like it's hot" but there's some stuff that not everyone either wants or needs to see. Ditto with reply all and carbon copying.

Important to note that many e-mail programs have options to make your mail "unfowardable", which could come in handy if you're sending confidential information.

I can't agree more. I was once the victim of unfortunate forwarding, and wholeheartedly agree that it can hurt. I was promoted to different department in my company, only to learn that my salary would stay about the same as in my old position. As my superiors attempted to fill my old position, they asked me to meet with a potential candidate via email. The email said "See below for details," so I did… only to find out that my replacement would likely make more money than I had made in the old position and more than I would make in my new one. I obviously wasn't supposed to see this, and it just made me feel rotten and angry, all of which could have been avoided if someone had simply sent me a two-sentence original email instead of pushing forward.

In my role, this is something that cannot be stressed enough. The reply all and forward are used very sparingly. If I forward outside of my company confidential information to people who are not supposed to see it, or send confidential information over an unsecure format, I will be fired, period. Even if 3 people below me they discussed the information and then stopped, and I reply external to my company over unsecure line with that information still in the chain, I am responsible. There really isn't any grey on the issue.

I think it's wonderful, because it has driven the mentality that reply all should only be used sparingly, and I hardly ever use forward.

The one thing that I've heard get people here is our chat capabilities. We use MS Communicator, so people are constantly chatting away to get info etc, when a call wouldn't be possible or it's a quick hit. I have heard of people having multiple windows open and writing the wrong thing to the wrong person, and I have heard of people being let go or transferred because of it.

@ Sam: Simile actually, but thank you. If you ever want to stress how careful you need to be with something just compare it to a chainsaw. It's sure to get the point across.

@ Andy: A lot of big companies are requiring email etiquette classes these days, but I wonder if it's something we should be stressing earlier, like college or even high school.

@ Lauren: Wow, that just sucks! Good example though. Hopefully you can use that frustration to be even better at what you do. Then you can blow your replacement's salary right out of the water.

@ Nathan: That's a pretty harsh system, but maybe you're right that it's good. It forces people to be extra careful.

Thanks for the comments so far!

I can tell you exactly why we have so many problems with "reply to all" emails: under-management

In today's flat organizations, responsibilities are ever-shifting. It's hard to be really sure who's responsible for what, who reports to who, and what everyone's skills are. Managers don't do their job of setting a clear structure for the workplace.

With no clear command structure, the only way to cover all bases is to spam everyone who MIGHT need to be involved (that's the 'reply all" problem).

Set up a clear structure for a project or a company, and you'll help reduce 'reply to all' emails.

I guess an alternate lesson is never write incriminating language in an email, like your boss did. Use the phone or talk to peers face to face. That way it is much easier to deny.

@ Scott M: I think even if you set up a clear structure people would still screw up. I blame carelessness more than the structure of our organizations, but you're point is valid. In some cases people just want to "cover all bases" so their clear.

@ Presh: That's why I prefer the telephone over all forms of communication, besides face-to-face interaction of course.

Scott – I've had to deal with the situation you describe many a time in my old job. Sometimes it wasn't so much as a problem of not having a clear structure as it was (as Ryan agrees) a rear-end covering scenario. The other (positive) edge of the e-mail sword is that if someone ignores your request or denies that you asked them to do something, you can always refer back to your original e-mail.

I learned this one the hard way. In a series of e-mails I was talking with someone in another department about marketing materials he could order from our warehouse. I mentioned to him that even though the items were listed in the inventory, they might not be available because "the warehouse is a black hole" or something along those lines.

He gave me his order and I forwarded it to the sales admin.

The sales admin then forwarded that e-mail to the warehouse in order to alert them she had just placed an order in the system (I thought she'd just place the order, didn't realize there would be an e-mail follow-up).

Anyway, so then I get a call from the head of the warehouse out of the blue, saying that what I'd written in my e-mail hurt the warehouse's staffs feelings, and I had to write a letter of apology to them.

Here's the thing… of course the items that were being ordered WEREN'T IN THE WAREHOUSE, even though they were listed on the inventory… so technically I was right!

The best thing that came out of it was that they realized they needed to update the inventory more properly, like I'd asked them to months before.

The worst thingh was that I came off seeming like a disrespectful bitch, even though I was right.

Oh yeah, and I learned just to NEVER put anything remotely negative in e-mails. Anything that could POSSIBLY be construed as criticism or as remotely negative should never go in e-mail- always a phone call or face-to-face. That way there's no chance of anyone forwarding it and making you look bad, LOL!!