Eaglezview

Emails have invariably come to invade our work lives and personal lives. In personal emails, etiquettes come naturally; that is what I believe. But in the case of work related emails, I think all organizations should have a primer for email etiquette. Even this doesn’t seem to work in some cases where it is done, like in my company, but nevertheless, it has to be done. There are soft skills programs to sensitize everyone in the organization to these aspects, but, in spite of them, I come across so many outright rude mails. I can’t credit them to lack of language skills, because the language structuring is pretty good in most of them. What I have realized is that people use emails as a tool to emphasize and reiterate their position in the organization, be it an explicitly defined  role or a superior position which is in the gray. The most irritating and common manner in which this is expressed is by starting the mail without a greeting. This comes across as very rude. The other tool used is to end the mail with no words like ‘thanks’ ‘regards’, or even a casual ‘cheers’ but just the name. Besides these, the structuring of the email in terms of words used and general tone of the mail smell of condescendence, in a failed attempt to impose one’s non-existent authority!  Lack of time to put in a few words of greeting at the start and end of an email, also a conscious effort to keep the tone of the mail neutral is one of the lamest excuses you can get.

Well, What do I do with such mails?  Initially, I used to get agitated and restless; but in the end I usually let it be forgotten if it didn’t need any action from me or didn’t indict me, so to say. Later on I realized, “why should I let them off?”. There is no logic to let these people get away with it. Now, I actually enjoy such mails for they act as a let out vent. I am equally rude in my reply and I take enough pleasure in writing such mails and hitting the send button on them.