{"id":1047,"date":"2016-04-18T12:59:20","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T20:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.checkworks.com\/blog\/?p=1047"},"modified":"2016-04-18T13:41:51","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T21:41:51","slug":"hit-reply-to-all-lose-your-job-risk-your-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/index.php\/hit-reply-to-all-lose-your-job-risk-your-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Hit \u201cReply to All,\u201d Lose Your Job, Risk Your Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.checkworks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/bigstock-Wind-of-email-93598436.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1048\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1048 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.checkworks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/bigstock-Wind-of-email-93598436-1024x646.jpg\" alt=\"Girl covered with a wind of email\" width=\"625\" height=\"394\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/bigstock-Wind-of-email-93598436-1024x646.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/bigstock-Wind-of-email-93598436-300x189.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/bigstock-Wind-of-email-93598436-768x485.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/bigstock-Wind-of-email-93598436-624x394.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>By MJ Plaster<\/p>\n<p>Have you made an email blooper or blunder that caused you to \u201cdie a thousand deaths\u201d? Congrats! You have a pulse. Unfortunately, one email mistake could end your career or destroy your life. Think back to the first rule you learned when you went online: The Internet is forever\u2014if you don\u2019t want it broadcast on the 6 o\u2019clock news, don\u2019t put it out there.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nThe \u201close your job\u201d part is obvious, but what about the \u201close your life\u201d part? Imagine you\u2019re in the midst of a custody battle for your child. Now imagine that an email blasting your soon-to-be ex ends up in the wrong hands.<\/p>\n<p>Can You Top This One?<br \/>\nI almost lost a company, a conference and a premier sponsor by mistakenly clicking \u201cReply to All\u201d instead of \u201cReply.\u201d It was 4:00 o\u2019clock in the morning, and I was exhausted, having worked through the night. I co-owned a conference company at the time, and our sponsor was due to make a monumental announcement at our upcoming conference that would change the course of software user assistance.<\/p>\n<p>My sponsor posted a tasty teaser about the secret to the help-author mail list. I meant to reply to him, but instead of hitting \u201cReply,\u201d I hit \u201cReply to All,\u201d and broadcast the secret to the entire mail list of help authors and tech writers, many of whom were already enrolled to attend the conference. I didn\u2019t notice the mistake until I began receiving private emails from friends and colleagues on the list.<\/p>\n<p>My sponsor was on Pacific time, two hours behind me, so for the next few hours, my heart was bouncing around my chest. My hands and voice shook, and nothing could calm me until I spoke to the sponsor. Luckily for me, he has an incredible sense of humor, and what could have been a disaster is now something we laugh about\u201420 years later.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sure you can understand that having made that mistake once, I check the \u201cTo\u201d and \u201ccc\u201d fields before sending each email.<\/p>\n<p>What Is It They Say About Assumptions?<br \/>\nMany email mistakes are rooted in the assumption that colleagues, vendors, superiors and acquaintances are friends. They aren\u2019t\u2014unless they are. It\u2019s important to understand the distinction. If you have no \u201cfeel\u201d for people, it\u2019s best to ask yourself if you could call the person in the middle of the night for help. If you can, you\u2019ve got a friend. All others fall into the former groups.<\/p>\n<p>Another bad assumption is that emails are the equivalent of text messages. They aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Follow along as we review many of tragic mistakes that are all too common when using email.<\/p>\n<p><strong>15 Top Email Bloopers and Blunders<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Omitting a subject line<\/strong>\u2014without an appropriate subject line, your recipient might not open the email. This not only includes a blank subject line but also an old subject line, where you keep responding to an old email even though the subject has changed. It makes finding something in an old email difficult.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Forgetting a salutation<\/strong>\u2014common courtesy dictates that you say, \u201cGood morning, Jim, \u201cDear Jane,\u201d or, \u201cHi, Kim.\u201d If, after performing due diligence, you can\u2019t find the recipient\u2019s name, a simple \u201cGood morning\u201d will have to suffice.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Falling for SMS Syndrome<\/strong>\u2014proper spelling, grammar and punctuation are essentials of business communication, regardless of what form they take. Unless you are texting from your phone, write in complete sentences. It only takes a few seconds to check spelling and grammar, so make it a habit.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Disregarding tone<\/strong>\u2014keep your emails in line with your corporate culture\u2014a startup and a downtown law firm have very different cultures.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Spreading information (or gossip)<\/strong>\u2014it is never OK to assume that you can forward an email without permission. In the unlikely event that you forward something, remove the header that contains the senders name and address, etc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Assuming your email is confidential<\/strong>\u2014assume that others will see your email. The same night that I made the email blunder described above, I wrote a rant that ended up in the wrong (thankfully friendly) hands. I went back and checked the email I sent, and somehow, the wrong person received the email. Strangely, the original recipient never received the email. How did this happen? No clue! Lesson learned\u2014never put anything in writing that you don\u2019t want the world to see. Pick up the telephone if you don\u2019t want it broadcast to the world.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sending to the wrong recipient<\/strong>\u2014Outlook tries to guess your recipient, and people with similar names will pop up when you manually fill in the address line. Double-check the \u201cTo\u201d line before hitting \u201cSend.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sending an email when you\u2019re angry<\/strong>\u2014cool off before sending an angry email. Here\u2019s one way to do it: Type your diatribe in Word and save it. Sleep on it, or give yourself a few hours to cool off. Go back and edit it from a diplomat\u2019s point of view. Then, drop the text into an email. At the very least, do not fill in the \u201cTo\u201d line, and save the draft until you can think clearly and give it a proper edit.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Responding too quickly<\/strong>\u2014when you check your email in the morning, read through all emails from a person before responding. Circumstances change, and you\u2019ll have a better idea once you read through all of them.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Leaving off a signature line<\/strong>\u2014your sig line should appear on initial emails, but leave it off subsequent replies.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sending spam<\/strong>\u2014in a workplace environment, forwarding <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PKffm2uI4dk\" target=\"_blank\">Sad Cat Diary <\/a>to your email list is not only improper, it can get your fired. Have I forwarded this to colleagues? You bet\u2014I\u2019ve worked with one for five years and another one for two years, and both are cat guardians.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Forgetting the Internet is forever<\/strong>\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.urbandictionary.com\/define.php?term=all+your+base+are+belong+to+us\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cAll your emails are belong to us.\u201d <\/a>In the workplace, your email lives forever on the server\u2014FOREVER! Your superiors can review them at any time (like right before an evaluation), and they can and will be used against you if the business ever wants to pink slip you.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dumping your brain<\/strong>\u2014email is not meant to be a mind dump. Brevity rules, and no one has the brain cycles to read a tome, so get to the point.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hitting \u201cSend\u201d too soon<\/strong>\u2014it\u2019s easy to get distracted, and if you multitask (talking on the phone while writing an email comes to mind), you could inadvertently hit \u201cSend\u201d before the email is in top form.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Using \u201cbcc\u201d<\/strong>\u2014what if you send the bcc to the wrong person? Or worse, what if the bcc recipient replies to the original person to whom the email was addressed? OUCH! I don\u2019t trust the \u201cbcc\u201d function, so I don\u2019t use it. There are other ways to let someone know you\u2019ve sent an email.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Writing thoughtful emails is not rocket science. If you address the email after you\u2019ve edited it and just before you hit \u201cSend,\u201d that will fix most of the common email bloopers and blunders. Mother taught you to \u201cthink before you speak.\u201d That was great advice, and it translates into all forms of communications, not just business communications. Email is transported through the Internet, so refer back to the rule\u2014the Internet is forever. It\u2019s impossible to repeat the rule too many times.<\/p>\n<p>If you have an email blunder that you\u2019ll admit, feel free to share it on our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/checkworks\/\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook page.<\/a> The easiest way to learn is from others\u2019 mistakes instead of from our own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By MJ Plaster Have you made an email blooper or blunder that caused you to \u201cdie a thousand deaths\u201d? Congrats! You have a pulse. Unfortunately, one email mistake could end your career or destroy your life. Think back to the first rule you learned when you went online: The Internet is forever\u2014if you don\u2019t want [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1047"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1051,"href":"https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions\/1051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.checkworks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}