Top 5 Irritating things about emails

1. Fonts or Themes

When they are huge, coloured, Comic Sans and not a standard Arial or Times New Roman font, or when the Theme makes it impossible to read, I get really irritated.

I know you want to express your individuality in every email, but is it REALLY necessary to do it in super curly font that makes my head hurt, or when the font is yellow on white?

I am getting old, and that means I cannot spend the time squinting at bright green font against black, or white and trying to figure out what you’re saying to me.

I’m just going to delete that whole hot mess and call you for info instead.

2. Long Signatures

It’s cute. A quote or two.

Even one that tells me “DO YOU REALLY NEED TO PRINT THIS? PLEASE THINK OF THE TREES!”

But if you start making a book out of your signature, I am going to get peeved that I have to scroll past quotes on how horrible I am for being alive and not living like a monk to get to your contact info.

3. No contact info

ARG!!! In a signature, at least put your email address and telephone number. Nothing else. But PUT IT THERE so I know!

4. When they’re too long and rambly

I have a habit of doing this – over writing.

I know this about myself and have mentally smacked myself a couple of times for being too wordy. So you know what I do?

Before every email gets sent, I re-read it twice and chop each sentence in half if possible.

I always ask myself:

• Do they need to know the nitty gritty details?
• Did I repeat myself?
• Is the spelling/grammar OK?
• Did I attach the right documents?

Then I check the senders, check the BCC, CC fields to make sure they’re clean, and press Send.

If it’s a VERY important email, I send it to myself first and then I simulate reading it for the first time and check to see if I can edit it further or if there is missing info.

If the email CANNOT be shortened, I put it in a MS Word file and attach that instead with a short note so that people can choose when to read that document.

Vice versa, if they are too vague or too short, I don’t know what the action items are and who they are assigned to, so I’m going to ignore most of your emails from now on.

5. When they don’t spell the words out

I get it.

It takes 3 extra letters and more fingers to type “THANKS”. But is it really necessary, in a long, fairly well-composed email, to type “THX” at the end instead of “THANKS”?

The thing I don’t get is: you have already come SO FAR! You wrote a long email with all the action items and information, and then you cheap out at the end with a “THX”?

Worse, is if they decide that spelling “Your” is too long, and “UR” is sufficient.

Repeat after me: We only use shortcuts in spelling when we are texting with opposable thumbs on an annoyingly small cellphone.

The worst is if it is from a higher up like a manager, VP or executive. C’MON NOW!!! I literally lose respect for you with every word I read!