By Vicki Wrona, PMP

We all have pet peeves — those things that others (or possibly you) do that drive you crazy. I’ll start with some of mine with regard to emails. I am not disclosing this to rant, but instead in an attempt for all of us to be more aware and effective in our communications.

The first is not including contact information at the bottom of a business email. When I need to respond to that message, email is not always the most appropriate response. When that is the case, if contact info is not supplied at the bottom of an email, it takes time to gather the necessary information to respond or to facilitate introductions. It doesn’t take long, but is an unnecessary inconvenience, especially when they are asking for my help.

I am assuming that they want me to follow up on what they sent in the email, so why not put their contact info in there? Could it be that they are more concerned with getting an email out quickly rather than completely? Could it be that they did not notice anything was amiss? I have requested that those who work with me include contact information at the bottom of each email, and have coached other employees to do the same. This is so easily done by setting up an automatic signature that I am amazed that more people do not do this.

Another pet peeve is when someone responds to your email and does not include the original attachment. This is especially annoying when their answer is not descriptive, such as “I agree, we’ll move forward with that approach” or “I’m not sure, what do you mean?” We are all juggling many things, and the information in that prior email may or may not be fresh in our minds. Again, it may not be intentional, but it can come across as inconsiderate. I will admit that sometimes emails can get too long with many messages attached and it may be appropriate to shorten the note due to size, but when you do that, be sure to include the last message or two.

The last item I will bring up here is the one word replies. I had a boss who, in the interest of being efficient and saving herself time, would respond to many messages with one word, such as ‘yes’, or ‘ok’, or if she was in a generous mood, two words such as ‘I agree’. She wouldn’t attach the original note, and often the original note had multiple requests. In that case, what was she agreeing to? What did the yes or no refer to? Nobody knew. But she was efficient….or so she thought until the group interpreted her answer incorrectly and we had to perform rework.

What are your email pet peeves? Maybe if we share our frustrations, we can provide food for thought and, more importantly, for more appropriate behavior by others….and ourselves.