People need to include context in emails so the reciever knows what they are talking about.

This is an email I got yesterday at work.
Title: Didn't Work
Body: Tried it - Didn't Work

What didn't work? I have to respond back or dig through my emails to try and figure it out.

As someone who's been using email since the late 80s, starting on BBSes, first locally only, then world-wide using echo nets like Fidonet. Later getting on the internet in '93 or so, I hate, hate, HATE, top posting. Unfortunately, it's the default that too many programs (*cough*outlook*cough*) come configured with anymore. So it has become a defacto standard for many people that started with email using mostly windows products in the late 90s or so, and many webmails, and mobile devices.. so I'm screwed.

I find it so much more annoying to get every email in a thread with the entire thread quoted below (backwards) so often it takes a lot of digging to find what bit people are actually responding to (often as bad as TFB mentions above). All the data copied en masse is just as without context as not including the data at all many times. I essentially grew up with the style of quoting just the bits you're replying to, in context, and replying to those pieces just below them, and leaving out all the rest of the email.

Yes, the one argument I've heard why top posting is better does make some sense. That being pulled into a thread later can be confusing if top posting wasn't used because not all the data is included, but I still find that much easier to catch up on myself, and can ask for any other important emails from the thread to be forwarded if I feel I'm missing anything. Getting brought into a thread with pages and pages of a thread, again, backwards, is actually more annoying IMO to catch up on because now you have to wade through all the crap that's gone on and figure out which bits you need to know or not. Usually I find I waste far more time digging through too much data in these cases than I would've had the thread been less quoted, done in context, even if I needed to ask for a few more mails to get the details that are missing.

I'll agree with both The Former Banker and Miguelitosd about their beefs. I'll confess to having succumbed to the to top-posting reply email. *sobs* forgive me for I have sinned.

My particular nit are the people who launch into a long exposition about background, only to ask me a question. This also happens in meat-space. I do computers for statisticians, so I routinely field questions ranging from "what computer do I buy" to "how do I build a computer from parts I select?"

Here's the deal: I'm busy. Just ask the question. Sometimes a question is just a question and I won't be offended if you just straight ask me. Some times the answer is a simple "yes", "no", or "I don't know and need to research that" followed by appropriate web links, or a google search on my part, and then passing on what I learn.

If it isn't simple, I can come back with questions about motivation, what are you trying to accomplish, what sort of data do you have, and were is it you want to go with that data? now is the time for that background information.

If you don't know the difference between their, they're, and there, you are stupid and need to repeat fourth grade as many times as it takes for you to figure it out.

One of my pet peeves in emails is use of Comic Sans and other professionally non-standard fonts. If an elderly auntie wants to send out a howdy do in Papyrus because she saw it on her church newsletter and thought it looked fun and modern, I'll roll my eyes and move on. If I receive a business email like that, I want to scream. Either way, I automatically assume I'm dealing with a less than stellar mind. Snobby as hell, I know, but the stick up my ass has been there so long it doesn't sting too much anymore.

Another is misspellings, poor grammar, and uncalled-for abbreviations. How much time did you really save by typing, "How U bin?"

Yet another is use of colors, busy backgrounds, and other design-based personalizing of business e-mails, including in signatures. Oh, your signature is in Freestyle Script! I swear, it's like you reached into the e-mail and signed your name with a pen! And I love the LOLcat that accompanies every email you send, it brightens my day every time I see it, even after the 400th e-mail!

And the biggest peeve of all, one that pisses me off so badly that I'm not sure it qualifies as "pet," is assholes who copies every possible person, particularly on an email pointing out an error that could easily have been corrected before anyone else even noticed it, and especially when the people copied are senior management or clients.

Top-posting is pretty bad.

I can't stand getting useless bulk email from people I haven't communicated with in years.

It'd be one thing if it were important information, like a change of address, but it seems some people hit "send all" and the most trivial messages go to their entire address book.

My biggest pet peeve? People who hit "reply all" when it's completely unnecessary. I got a generic notification email from one of my chefs about an upcoming monthly group meeting, and this one woman replied to all 400+ recipients about how she couldn't attend because she'd be out of town and she hoped to visit her sick aunt but she was so sorry to miss the meeting and blah blah blah. Kind of annoying.

When someone emails me about a task that is part of my job -- and then CCs my supervisor.

By cc'ing my supervisor, you are suggesting that I won't do something on my own without the "helpful" reminder that my supervisor is on the email. And my supervisor, who already gets too many emails, is getting flooded with stuff she doesn't need.

I had a coworker who did this all the time at my former job.

Whenever she messed something up (like when she lost the occasional invoice), I was always so so so so tempted to cc her boss. But I never did, because that is crappy.

I'd agree with Reply-all, but particularly in regards to a listserve (list, mailing list). I can't count how many responses I've gotten on several of the email lists I belong were meant for the person who sent the original email, or not related at all to the original message.

Also ... email forwards. I still occasionally get an email about Penny Brown being lost... just brings my ire up very quickly and my opinion of the sender down even faster.

fun write-up!

I also agree with hating "reply all" e-mails. I am a professor and so will often get annoying e-mails from college and graduate students that use text message abbreviations (that shouldn't even be used when texting as far as I am concerned). I won't answer those type of e-mails, they are not worthy of a response.

I do agree with the "reply-all" issues, but I find it just as annoying when they don't use it. When I am trying to keep everyone on a committee in the loop, one person always seems to be incapable of selecting "reply-all" when he/she is providing input to the group. Then it's up to me to forward their email to everyone else in the group. I generally include the original author in the hopes that they eventually understand that they could have saved me time if they just replied to everyone.

I don't like getting emails with titles like "Hey". I'm busy, and I wish you would put something in your subject line that tells me what the email is actually about, so I can see if I need to get to it right away. If you just want to say hello, make your subject line "Just Saying Hello" or something like that.

Maybe this is a problem that's peculiar to where I work, but don't send encrypted or digitally signed emails to someone without first verifying that they have the ability to receive and process same. There are few things more annoying than getting a long encrypted email, with something dire in the subject line, that you can't read because their organization's certificate server is behind a firewall.

Don't attach application-specific files unless you are sure that the receipient has the necessary software to read them. Rich text, PDF, JPEG, and common formats like that are OK. But don't send me, say, a Visio drawing, because even at work I can't do anything with that. And remember, not everyone shells out $$$ for MS Office.

Don't send me executables, of any kind, unless we've coordinated and I'm expecting it. Otherwise, it goes in the trash without looking.

"By cc'ing my supervisor, you are suggesting that I won't do something on my own without the "helpful" reminder that my supervisor is on the email. And my supervisor, who already gets too many emails, is getting flooded with stuff she doesn't need."

I've had to do that when co-workers were ignoring my task requests. It was a last resort way to get them to do their job.

But in your case, if they're cc'ing over stuff you would do anyway, I can see how that wouldn be annoying.

Believe it or not there are still people out there who forward buttloads of joke emails or Shocking Revelations about Obama!1!!, usually with huge fonts all spread down the page which hurt my eyes.

Sadly, these people are other righties who just don't seem to get all the new stuff on the Internets since email was invented.And it's always stuff I heard about a long time ago, or stuff easily refuted at Snopes. (I told one old gal about the Snopes take on the subject and she never emailed or talked to me again.)

I almost always blow them away as soon as they show up.

Another thing as an old school emailer... HTML only formatted email. Especially when they use something like color (the worst) or bolding/italics to make the reply stand out from the quoted bits. Many of us prefer to use text only mailers for speed and ease of use (I use mutt). I have lame/hacky work-arounds I have to do in order to open the HTML only stuff in a browser... iff I think it's worth it. Usually you just get ignored.

People already mentioned it but the stupid background pictures, especially the stuff that tries to make the email look like it's on stationary or something. Bleh. Don't even get me started on extra animated emoticons attached.

For both of these (and the font things people mentioned) if you can't get your info across in text, you're doing it wrong.

Oh, I also love the people that send pictures embedded inside a doc or worse, powerpoint slideshow. Just send me the damn pictures. Though I'd rather you send a link to the pictures instead of using email as a file transfer mechanism if you'd really like to know.

How about those lame quasi-legal sounding footnotes, worse when a company's mail servers append them automatically. I love when they say things like "the info in this email is for the recipients eyes only," especially when it was something they sent to me by accident. I don't think one of these has been tested in court yet, and doubt it would hold up.. you sent the data out across a network unencrypted, if you care about the data, encrypt it. Plus it's fun to see that you see the thing, after you read the data anyway. Often those things are so huge that many short emails are smaller than the damn footnote.

Dear Miguelitosd,

Thank you for sharing your concerns about lame quasi-legal sounding footnotes. My company's mail server attaches them automatically. It's so good to know that they care about employee privacy and want to remind any unintended recipients of dog shaming photos that they must avert their eyes or face the consequences.

Sincerely,
Beth Cartwright

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email, and any documents, files, or previous emails attached to it, may contain information that is confidential or legally privileged. If the reader of this email is neither the intended recipient nor an employee or agent responsible for delivering this email to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any unauthorized review, use, disclosure, or distribution of this communication is strictly prohibited. Disclosing this email, or any document, file, or previous email attached to it, to anyone other than the intended recipient may cause the disclosing party to be liable for damages to Young’s Holdings, Inc. or its affiliates. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender by replying to the email and delete it from your computer without reading it or saving it in any manner.

I hate text-speak in e-mails. Actually I hate text-speak in texts, too, but I think that ship has sailed.

Chain e-mails. Why, why, why do people send these on to everyone in their address books? Do you really believe the FSM will smite you with his sauce if you don't?

I also just love it when I send an e-mail, perhaps three whole sentences long, giving or asking for information, and the response clearly shows the recipient read the subject and that's it. Please don't bother to respond if you can't be bothered to read what I wrote.

Also, use fucking Snopes, people!!

What's especially amusing about it is that the disclaimers are at the bottom of the email, and "delete it from your computer without reading it" is in the last sentence. Even if people read the disclaimer, they're going to read the email before getting to this little nugget.

My biggest pet peeve? People who hit "reply all" when it's completely unnecessary. I got a generic notification email from one of my chefs ... miss the meeting and blah blah blah. Kind of annoying. -- Sarah at March 14, 2013 11:11 AM

In the same vein:
The one I hate is the meeting coordinator or group coordinator, etc. that doesn't BCC the recipients with the only To address being the sender.

Thank you fuckhead -- I now have two hundred personal email addresses added to my account that I have no fucking idea who they are. I also now have my preferred e-mail address given to every e-mail spam list in the world.
===================================

Other pet peeve:

Letting a website suck on your contact list.

I had been contacted by someone for job hunting advice. Then he went and signed up with Linked-in or some such shit that sucks your contact list up. I get the e-mail from the site "John Doe joined up, don't you want to also?" My spam went from about 700 a month filtered to 3K. I was getting about three spams that made it past the filters everyday for a couple of months.

Some how that guy's e-mails are no longer answered. They go into spam as well.

What drives me to absolute madness are people who send out those cutesie emails that are never cute (or any emails at all actually) and don't use bcc, so that my private email is now not only in the hands of every recipient but every person that it is forwarded to in the future. Hate hate hate this. I have public emails and work emails and one private one that I am trying to protect from spammers. My mother, among others, has gotten an earful over this!

First post on this thread times ten!!!!

People who refuse to take the time to explain why they've sent you an email, especially when they are sending you an email to help them with something.

Drives me nuts.

My response is to play dumb as a fox and keep asking them stupid questions (one by one- not all at once) in a way that shows them that 1) I don't read minds, 2) I never assume things and 3) my time is valuable. If you don't respect my time, I will not go out of my way to respect yours. Oh, and do your job!!!! It's slothful and unacceptable to wing off emails without telling someone what you expect or need from them.

Seriously. I've noticed an uptick of this over the last five years. It's the "it's not my job I just work here crowd". Well guess what? When you really need something (unless it would be detrimental to the company or legally foolish for me to punt it for a while) all those other people who took the time to express their needs and expectations to me (the, like, two extra minutes they spent) get put in the front of the line.

Oh. And also. Poor planning on your part (e.g. Subject line: Rush!!!! Urgent!!!!! Immediate attention requested!!!!!) does not translate into me having to run around with my hair on fire to fix your problem - ESPECIALLY where again, you fail to provide me with any context, background or expectations other then the obnoxious overuse of emergency punctuation!!!!!!!!

True story. I was working for a tech writing company that was pretty spread out. This was in the 90's and many were new to email.

One young lady was obviously emailing her friend and was b*****ing about her boss, her boss's boss, the pay scale, and working conditions.

She then hit "Global" and it went to every person in the company directory. All 750 of us.

She resigned within 2 days. "Global" soon disappeared from the email toolbar.

The confidentiality BS like The Jingoist posted, and those crazy colorful signatures/platitudes/witty sayings after the email signature. PLEASE MAKE IT STOP.

Sometimes it just makes more sense to just pick up the phone or go down the hall and have an actual conversation instead of going round and round with emails. Don't bombard me with 20 fragmented questions throughout the day trying to solve a complicated legal issue by email- it just doesn't work (and it is worse if you have copied half the world on the emails).

This isn't rude, per se, but it's pretty cute. My mom is figuring out email, and she writes to me a lot, so much that she puts "RE:" in the subject line, even if it's a brand new email. I've gotten "Re: dead things in the house," "Re: maniac behind the wheel in Sayville yesterday," "Re: I need a drink at 10:45AM." (Don't we all.)

Anyway, I am a graduate student, and am constantly emailing my professors regarding different things, advice, etc. Often I'll receive a response in text speak. From doctors. Sheesh!

I think my own personal pet peeve, which I haven't seen listed here, is people who don't read all the emails on a subject before adding their own. For example, you are emailing several people about something, and people start chiming in. It's one thing when the next email goes out before you finished writing your email. it's another thing when several hours later, someone replies to the first email in the chain. Check your other emails to make sure that the conversation hasn't already addressed your comment.

I really hate people who send emails saying - please send the documents to the correct email inbox. Just forward it to the maibox cc'ing me, tell me what I'm missing if I've forgotten anything and remind me to use the right one next time.

Katie, maybe your mom thinks "Re:" means "Regarding." That is funny.

"One young lady was obviously emailing her friend and was b*****ing about her boss, her boss's boss, the pay scale, and working conditions."

There was a legendary incident that happened at my former employer, back in 1999. Two guys got into an email argument and were getting really down and dirty with each other -- name calling, cuss words, personal stuff about each other's girlfriends, the whole bit. Somehow, at some point, one of them managed to CC: the entire site, and then the argument continued back and forth, with each of them replying to the whole site each time. At some point, someone else tried to save with with this reply: "Do you guys realize that the entire site is seeing this?" To which one of them replied: "THIS IS NONE OF YOUR GODDAM BUSINESS. STAY THE FUCK OUT OF IT."

Needless to say, the employment of those two guys didn't last much longer. But years later, we were still laughing about it.

I almost always blow them away as soon as they show up.

Ah, yes, it would be a better world if everyone did that.

I had a friend who was always sending me forwards about how I was going to die in a gang initiation involving headlights, or someone was going to sneak into my car while I'm pumping gas, etc, etc.

I began hitting reply and just sending everyone she'd emailed the Snopes link.

I don't get those emails from her anymore.

ooops! I quoted the wrong line in the post above. I meant to quote:
Also, use fucking Snopes, people!!

I get annoyed when people create email address books and don't keep them up to date. Every so often, somebody I worked with/went to school with/etc 5-15 years ago but have not had ANY contact with since, gets hacked. Then I'm getting an email from somebody who I may or may not place quickly, and am more likely to get a virus.

I hate companies that decide since I did business with them when I was twelve I want their 20-a-day emails and unsubscribe doesn't work.

My most modern annoyance is people who expect that I am on email constantly. I've gotten emails like:

We're heading out to the zoo in five minutes, do you want to join us?

Really, I have better things to do that sit and watch my email all day. Call me. Text me, but for the love of frogs DO NOT EMAIL such stuff.

Some people say it's my fault for not using my phone for email. I say I don't want it, and I shouldn't have to fork over money for an overpriced phone just so they can contact me via email - when they are using their phone and can just as easily text me.

I forgot the "what's smart" part!

I like it when companies I deal with send me documents (not "useful information") via email rather than snail-mail (e.g. car insurance cards). If I loose my print-out, then I just go print it again. I also get it much faster.

I also like it when parents contact me to arrange kid/family get-togethers via email. It gives me time to talk to everyone involved and such before I reply & the phone is difficult because of childlike interruptions.

"I really hate people who send emails saying - please send the documents to the correct email inbox. Just forward it to the maibox cc'ing me, tell me what I'm missing if I've forgotten anything and remind me to use the right one next time."

This reminds me of a peeve that's only related to the email involved and is more a work thing. It drives me nuts when people will spend more time sending me a long email asking me to make specific changes to a script, rather than simply making the change themselves (they have permission and we are a team after all) and just letting me know "Hey, I made this change, hope it's ok." I usually always do the latter myself, unless it's something, or someone, who gets in a tizzy if you touch "their" stuff.

My most modern annoyance is people who expect that I am on email constantly.

Try having the people you support at work expecting this, 24/7, from personal mails not properly sent into the help queues.

She then hit "Global" and it went to every person in the company directory. All 750 of us. -- Mike43 at March 14, 2013 8:46 PM

Anecdotal story from the '90s. At the time MS Exchange would copy any attachment to every single person's mail box. MS has since changed it that if it is above 5-10 addressees, and depending on size, the server will store it once and have a "link" to original.

This happened because the large <company not named> I was a working for at the time had an employee send a semi-large jpg image to everyone in the the company of Mickey Mouse wishing you a Merry Christmas on December 22nd on her way to vacation.

She wasn't available to retract the message. There was a 50KB image in every single inbox in about 13,000 inboxes. For some reason the Exchange server crashed due to a lack of disk space. Then they would bring it back up and Exchange would try to propagate the image to the rest of the mailboxes, running out of space again.

The IS team was finally able to bring e-mail back online late on December 24th. Microsoft had an earful because of the fuck-up. When a Fortune 100 company tells MS they screwed up -- they are listened to and heard.

reminded me of another funny peeve ... signature blocks that try to shame you into believing their cause.

My favorite, and the one that I finally convinced the sender to change was a small-medium graphic with the text "please consider the environment before printing out this email." Over 60% of the time, when I printed the email, it changed a 1-page document to a 2-page one, with that signature block being the only thing on the second page.

Please consider the environment before causing the electrons to fire to change this text from white to black... :P

I am late getting back to this...

I am a big fan of top posting. When an email comes in I see the first couple of lines and many times that tells me whether I need to open the email and look into it or can wait. For example, on Friday I got an email from a co-worker that said "I won't get to it till Monday." which meant I could keep working on what I was working on...if you are bottom posting I would have seen the first part of the first message so I would have stop, open the email then scroll to the bottom only to find out there was nothing to do.

Reply-all and large distribution lists need to be used appropriately. My favorite mistake (some claim it was intended) was the CIO emailing out the form the had the point costs for employees for various locations to "All_IT_Employees" instead of "All_IT_Managers". ( showed India contractors where 20points/day...NYC employees 130/day)

Including the supervisor is going to be situation depended. At my last job that annoyed me...Manager would always think I was not responding or something. We are spread way to thin at my current job and my manager tightly manages what we work on. It is not uncommon for him to jump in and put the task off, or have another team member work on it, or maybe have a team member work on what I was working when I got interrupted.

Bcc groups is another "it depends" things. Inside the company I would say it should not be used. I had this happen to me last summer...someone sends out an email with everyone bcc'ed then goes on vacation. I needed to follow up and had no easy way to let everyone know.