Pete adds to these rules with the following message:

"I can't believe you missed it:

Expect your email to be read in the most negative light possible. If you want to avoid that outcome, don't sent it--call or meet in person instead (or prior to sending, if it must be sent)."

Thanks for the input.

That leads me to one more rule:

Don't read email in the most negative light possible.

Everyone has to rely on email to some extent. And we all recieve way more messages than we can deal with (and probably more than we can read.) I was just going over messages from last week (pathetic activity for a day off) and ran across a critical request for a conference call on December 2nd. It was a good catch and it made me wonder how many messages I just space and what that does to the people who sent them.

Maybe another variation on email rules would be, "assume your messages don't get read" or "assume your message get read and comprehended less than half the time' (probably way less than half).........
8:04:41 AM    comment []