Office Emails
June 1, 2004
We’ve all experienced it. That person in the office who sends off a playful email with references to pop culture, funny animated gifs, or quirky news tidbits. I’ll admit, some of the material is funny while others are questionable, especially if they end up in the wrong hands.
As a rule of thumb, I rarely will respond to these kinds of emails, apart from the occassional gibber gabber around the water cooler. Most of the time, if the material is deemed inappropriate — and in this case unprofessional — the discussion will cease and the email rotation comes to a halt.
My own observation is that office emails should be limited to professional and office-related correspondence, with the occasional “appropriate” fun email. Tongue-in-cheek references, be they attached to office events or after business hour get togethers are in my opinion appropriate, if used sparingly.
6 comments
From experience — leave out the racial or ethnic slurs — even if you feel they are subtle.
by Colin D. Devroe on June 1, 2004 at 11:26 pm. #
The occasional fun, irreverent email is OK — the opposite case would be that like a colleague that seemed to do nothing but send us all those weird/odd videos you find across the ‘Net.… as attachments.
I wish I had the free time some seem to have in droves.
by beto on June 2, 2004 at 12:25 pm. #
Not only are they most of the time inappropriate and unprofessional, but in the end they are time consuming too. If a few jokers send an e-mail with a professional sounding subject but with some meaningless body text, at the end of the day it consumes time you could have spend better.
Btw, great layout you have! (And i mean that in the most professional way possible
)
by Luc on June 2, 2004 at 12:29 pm. #
We get those type of emails alot down here in the command. It rather gets annoying especially if the email was pointed towards you. I feel like ranting, but I’m going to hold back and just say..
If you actually laugh out loud reading it, send it. If it only makes you smile, save it for a rainy day and keep it to yourself.
end rant.
by Matt (Brother) on June 2, 2004 at 2:20 pm. #
Colin, I’ll heed your advice.
Luc, thanks.
I love all the tutorials you have on your site, very informative, not to mention fun as well.
Beto, it seems that there are alot of people with free time. Remember Office Space? Mm-yeah.
Oh, and Matt? Get back to work keeping our Country safe and cracking codes (G14 Classified-type stuff).
by kartooner on June 2, 2004 at 6:29 pm. #
Thank you for your nice comments Erik and for the link
.
by Luc on June 3, 2004 at 12:01 pm. #