Reply All Please

This morning, I checked my work email as I did everyday at work for the past year and a half but something was off. I had many more emails than usual; something must have gone wrong! I quickly went through the emails and I was worried for a half second for no reasonable explaination.

It is probably a problem that happens all the time across the world. The "Reply All" feature was abused again (even at Google). I have received numerous emails from reply alls from various people. The first email was CCed to a distribution list that seemed to include everyone within the the company. The list had a "cool" name and people replied all to be removed from the list. Others replied all with "I think you have the wrong Insert Name" and after a few of those, someone named Peter Parker sent "You have the wrong Spiderman too..." That was quite entertaining. To help the situation, multiple people replied all to tell people to stop replying all; it was a vicious cycle! With great power, comes great responsibility. Use "Reply All" wisely.

So what is proper email etiquette? Well, don't reply all if you don't have to; most times it's not necessary and just creates something for others to delete (and an excuse to have not seen an email or two). In this morning's email, it would have sufficient to just do a simple "Reply". CC should be used if you want to inform someone but would not expecting a reply; in other-words, it's a FYI. 

And if you receive a suspicious email from someone you know, it would be polite to email them about it since he or she mean have had they account hacked into. It could be your good deed for the day.