Are you an email bitch?

Are you sure you want to hit "send"?

You just received a very “direct” email from a workmate. So what do you do? Fire back a venomous response? Forward it to another workmate and have a bitch? Or send a 600-word response asking why she is so upset? Careful, now. Your emails say a lot more about you – both as a person and as an employee – than you might think.

If emails to your friends are like this…
“Well, I’m so sorry to have ruined your precious weekend. Perhaps if you hadn’t spent the whole night sucking up Katrina’s ass then I wouldn’t have had to leave the party so early. And actually, you know what? I’m not the only person who can see through your act. We were all talking about it. It’s just plain sad, to be honest.”
People may think you’re emotionally juvenile.
If your immediate response to an email that upset you is to fire back a barrage of sarcasm, insults or bitchiness, you’ll lose friends faster than a stripper sheds clothes. It’s never nice to get a nasty email, but refusing to reply is not only taking the moral high road, it also teaches the sender that they cannot carry on like that. Don’t feed their desire for drama.
Solution: You need to learn the art of hitting “Save as Draft”. Write a no-holds-barred email as therapy (leave the person’s email address off the recipient line for now – just in case your finger slips), and then save it as a draft. When you re-read it a few hours later, you’ll be so relieved you didn’t hit “Send” in the heat of the moment. And now you can write a less emotional, more composed email (“Maybe we need to talk about this in person?”), or just be brave and pick up the phone instead.

If your work emails are like this…
“Hi sweets. Hope ur well? Wondering if you’ve gotten around to doing that Hastings report yet? If you could possibly get to it by 3 or so, I’d love you forever  Thx!!!
Jess.”
People might think you’re insincere or unprofessional.
There is a time for pet names, kisses and excessive punctuation. Your language is far too intimate for work and can even undermine your credibility. As for amusing, teen-style decorations? Save emoticons for MySpace.
Solution: Keep work and social email conduct completely segregated. For work? No emoticons. Ever. And refrain from slang, overly affectionate terms (babe, darl, love) and girlie kisses. A simple ‘Jx’ is fine.

If your work emails are like this…
“Can you leave those printouts on my desk.”
People might think you’re a blunt, heartless cow.
Email has no tone, which is precisely why emoticons and punctuation are so fiercely overused. Stark scripts like the above can appear cold and harsh. The recipient might feel undervalued or wonder if they have done something wrong (absolute torture for Miss Clingy). Most work emails are veiled in somewhat-necessary buffers such as “If you don’t mind” and “Thank you” for a reason: they’re vital to defuse a tone-free medium.
Solution: Take care not to sound selfish and aggressive, even if you’re the boss. If you’re someone to do something for you, remember your manners.

Need more office etiquette? Then check out:

How to manage a difficult colleague

How to handle scandal

How to deal with office politics