Email Etiquette Refresher Course

I'm not even sure where to begin on this topic. I really thought we had covered this ad nauseam, but based on the number of people who get to Little Merry Sunshine from the search terms "to vs cc" or "email etiquette" and the number of emails I continue to receive where the sender clearly doesn't get this concept, I guess not.

Just today, I received an email message from a business I've never been to in a neighboring town announcing that a woman I've done business with in the past has joined the company. Super. Good for her. Really. I'm happy she's found a new job and I've enjoyed doing business with her in the past, so might have continued until I realized that (1) the email was not from her, but was from her new employer and (2) the email was sent to me and about 50 other people, all of who's email addresses I could see.

What irked me was that she had given my email address to her new employer rather than contacting me herself, so now I'm on their email list. But what irked me more was that the business cared so little for protecting their client list (or maybe more appropriately their hopeful client list) and did not use BCC. The business in question has no idea what the recipients will use that email list for or to whom they will forward all those email addresses.

Personally, my client list is my business lifeblood and I wouldn't give or sell or trade that away for anything. When I email my clients, I always use BCC. Not only do I want to protect the privacy of my client base, but I want to protect my own business. How does this business owner know that someone won't give that list to their competition?

What did I do with the email? I wrote the owner back (I did not hit "reply all") and asked to be removed from the email list and never to be contacted again.

Just so we're clear, if the people in the group all have a reason to know the others are receiving the email, then using TO or CC is fine. For example, if you are emailing a group to confirm an upcoming meeting, use TO or CC. There may need to be some pre-meeting discussion via email between all the attendees and having those emails is useful. Sending out a newsletter, business announcement, reunion notice, etc. where the recipients have nothing in common, do not need to be in touch with each other, or haven't given you explicit permission to share their email should be done through BCC.

I know that it feels like there is no privacy in this world of interconnectedness, but a little common sense and asking yourself the question of "Would I want this email list shared outside of this group of people?" or "If I were a recipient would I want all these people having my email address?" will usually give you the right answer of when to use To vs. CC vs. BCC.

Because privacy is such a big deal, I'm reposting one of the most popular blog posts of all time on Little Merry Sunshine.

To vs. CC vs. BCC
November 22, 2008

I have a pet peeve and it's been tripped up again. Given that I have lost friends over this particular pet peeve in the past, I thought I would put this out to my blog readers and see what you all think. I'm open to the fact that I'm simply overreacting to this and have been wrong all these years.

My pet peeve is when people send out emails to a huge list of recipients who are not all known to each other and put everyone in the TO or CC field rather than the BCC field.

The TO and CC fields allow all the recipients to see one another's email addresses. In some instances, this is fine and necessary. Those instances usually include times when some sort of conversation is taking place via email and the recipients need to be able to respond to everyone.

It is my belief, however, that if an email is strictly informational (e.g., marketing emails, jokes, political, religious, newsletters, etc.) then BCC should be used.

I run my own business and work hard to respect the privacy of my clients. I never send out emails to my entire client using the TO or CC fields. I believe it's just rude. I don't know what my clients are doing with the emails (hopefully, forwarding them to their family and friends - that's how referrals are built!) and I don't want my email address book to end up in the wrong hands.

Previously, a good friend of mine (now a former friend) would send out all those unsupported urban legends to huge lists of people using TO or CC. None of them were ever true as they were easily disproved using snopes.com. I politely repeatedly asked this friend to check out snopes.com before forwarding these outrageous emails , use BCC, or take me off the list. Multiple emails later, that all used TO or CC, I hit "Reply All" (on purpose) and politely told everyone that whatever the newest urban legend was, wasn't true and included the supporting documentation. My friend blew up at me and we haven't spoken since. I know that hitting "Reply All" was rude and probably embarrassed her. But I truly did not know what else to do.

A couple of years later, I had a distant family member on the other side of the country do the same thing but with religious emails. And his friends, none of whom I knew, would repeatedly hit "Reply All" to discuss their church activities. Personally, the religious emails offended me on many levels, but I felt like I was in a Catch-22. I enjoyed the ability to keep in touch with my relatives, but did not share their fundamentalist religious beliefs. Again, I replied to my relative (not everyone) and shared with him my request to use BCC or to not send me the religious emails, but he didn't. These emails continued for weeks until I finally wrote and sternly requested, in an email only to my family member, that I be removed from the list and only contacted for family-related business. My family member hasn't spoken to me since.

This has started to happen again with someone I knew peripherally from college marketing his new business. I have written this person (not the entire group) and politely asked him to please use BCC and related how much my clients appreciate when I respect their privacy and I know his will too. But now I'm questioning myself. UPDATE: The person wrote me back, thanked me for bringing this to his attention and said he would use BCC from now on.

Do you run into this To vs. CC vs. BCC problem? How do you handle it?

I am open to the possibility that I am overreacting and that the rest of the world does not find this problematic.

Discuss.

I'll step off my soapbox now. Thank you for reading.

Little Merry Sunshine's Rules of the Road

Winter has arrived in Chicago and with that it has come to my attention that some people need a refresher on their winter driving skills.

To that end, Little Merry Sunshine provides you with her Rules of the Road, which are not meant to be a replacement to the Illinois Secretary of State's Rules of the Road, just an addendum and mostly based on common courtesy:

1. Spend the extra 5 minutes and scrape off all your windows, the roof of your car, your headlights and tail lights. You can do this while your car warms up and then your reward will be a warm car. Simply turning on the windshield wipers is not enough. It is important to spend this time because you will be able to see other cars on the road better and they will be able to see you easier, especially if you drive a white car. Clearing your roof is important because if you're driving in front of me and 2 feet of snow from the roof of your Hummer flies onto my windshield, I will cause you great pain physically, emotionally, and financially, when I survive the accident I'm sure to get into thanks to your laziness.
2. Make sure your windshield wiper fluid is full and then make use of it and your windshield wipers. This will improve your visibility and I recommend re-cleaning your windshield at stoplights as necessary.
3. Invest in new wiper blades. I personally love the winter wiper blades. As discussed above, your ability to see what's in front of you is paramount to everyone's safety on the road.
4. Turn on your headlights. The rule of thumb (and the law) is that if your wipers are on, your headlights should be on. Headlights not only illuminate the road for you, but more importantly, make it easier for oncoming cars to see you. I always keep mine on during the day.
5. Drive the speed limit that is safe for your driving conditions, not necessarily the posted limit. Last night, I was coming home during the first rain/snow storm of the season. Most of the cars were driving a very busy 4-lane unplowed and unsalted road at about 25 mph. This is a road that has anywhere between 35-45 mph posted depending on the part of town. A couple of cars blew past everyone else which made for very unsafe conditions. They were probably only going the posted limit of 45, but the roads were covered in rain/snow/ice/slush and the lane markings were entirely not visible. In their rush to arrive 6 seconds earlier, these drivers put everyone else at risk.
6. Take extra precaution in braking and allow more time for it. Do you remember the rules about pumping your brakes (or not if you've got ABS)? Use them.
7. Add more distance between you and the car in front of you and never tailgate. This seems so obvious, but evidently isn't. On the same trip home last night, I was being tailgated by a very impatient and rude driver. Tailgating is not only rude, but it is dangerous. If I had needed to stop quickly, this driver would have ended up in my front seat. By adding an extra car length or two (in addition to the normal distance this driver should have kept), we would have been much safer if I had somehow started to slide or if something happened in front of me.
8. Keep extra distance at stop lights too. If you are too close at a stop light and you get rear-ended, you will plow into the car in front of you. I was in a chain-reaction read end collision on I-395 one time in Washington DC. Sitting at a complete standstill in bumper-to-bumper traffic, a car 4 cars behind me plowed into someone. That person was pushed into someone, who was pushed into someone and ultimately they all plowed into me. Fortunately, I always leave extra distance between myself and the car in front of me and the accident ended with me because even though my car was pushed forward, I did not hit anything. I had minimal damage and was unhurt. The same can't be said for everyone behind me.
9. Keep your cell phone charged, but stay off of it, especially in the worst weather. And invest in a Bluetooth or other hands-free device.
10. Use your turn signals. Of course, you know where you are headed, but assume that no one else is reading your mind. The turn signal clues people into what actions you may be taking.
11. Change lanes before you need to. This may sound silly, but if you need to get off the Kennedy at Ohio and you're in the far left lane, waiting until you are 10 feet from the exit is not the right time to cross 5 lanes of traffic at 55 mph. Also, if you ever get to drive 55 mph on the Kennedy near Ohio, let me know.
12. Check your tires for tread depth and inflation levels. Do they need to be replaced because they have no tread? You can measure the depth of the tread with a coin. If they're below 2/32", you need new tires. Keeping your tired properly inflated can also make you safer and improve your gas mileage.
13. Keep your gas tank full. This way you won't risk running out of gas in the middle of the road.
14. Pack an emergency kit in your car. I have a flash light, 2 blankets, an extra scarf & hat, 2 granola bars, a bottle of water, hand warmers, an extra pair of wool socks, and some reflective signs for my window that say "call 911." You never know when or where you will need this.
15. Do you have AAA? I swear by it because it's saved me multiple times. It's cheap and better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
16. Ladies, wear weather appropriate shoes. Our stilettos are sexy, but they're useless and dangerous in this weather. Keep them dry and protected by wearing boots. Your feet will be warmer and should you need to get out of your car for any reason, you'll be much safer.
    
17. Be patient. Road rage won't get you from Point A to Point B any faster and in fact can be deadly.
18. All extra time to reach your destination. This will keep your road rage in check, allow you to drive safely, and give you plenty of time to remove all the snow from your car.
    

Follow Little Merry Sunshine's Rules of the Road, along with the Rules of the Road from your state and you're sure to have a safe winter navigating the roads.