I'm not sure there is anything more pretentious than marking an email as High Importance. I am not any more inclined to read a red-flagged email than one that isn't MARKED WITH EXCLAMATION POINTS.
Actually, there is something email-related that is more pretentious: requests for receipts of email. Does anyone else get these? One of the dean's secretaries ALWAYS put one of these on emails she sends out. After I open the email, Outlook pops open a request for permission to send back a receipt of reading. Ummm.... no. I always click no. If people are concerned that I read an email, why not request IN THE EMAIL that I acknowledge reading it?
The funny thing is that usually these requests are attached to emails that clearly aren't urgent. Things like regalia order requests. Or lab report questions. Or fall book orders.
What do I consider topics worthy of the red flag? Notifications of free food. Or booze. Or cancellations of classes. Yup, that's all I can think of right now.
(By all means feel free to explain to me why URGENT! is an important feature for emails.)
4 comments:
Both email and text confirmations drive me insane. Yes, I may read it at 2am. No, you don't need to know that. Especially when you're a student and I don't reply right away to your email marked as 'URGENT!!!!!!' and all you ask is if I can consider giving you an extra 1% that won't matter for your GPA anyway.
Most e-mail clients allow you to turn off the column of the display that shows whether an e-mail is flagged as urgent and also to turn off return receipts completely. This means that you never even know if some douchebag has flagged his dumbass near-spam e-mail as URGENT!!!!11!1!ELELBEYYT!!11! and requested a return receipt.
One thing that does suck is that there is a bug in the Blackberry Internet Service e-mail system that causes return receipts to be sent to e-mails received from another Blackberry Internet Service account, even if you have turned this off in your preferences. (It does, however, work to prevent return receipts from being sent in response to e-mails received from outside the Blackberry network.)
I used to have those pet peeves! So I did hide the red flag column in my email clients.
But! I now get 100-300 emails every day. Especially when traveling and trying to tackle 1000 messages, if it's not marked High Importance, I'm unlikely to do much more than glance at the subject line. So it does help prioritize when there are large numbers of people talking at you. I also use different colored flags in Outlook, have a text file with global teleconference numbers and web meeting link, and one of those cool headsets so I can talk on my phone and type with both hands.
I'm still offended by emails written in multi-colored text or all capital letters but give me another couple years in industry and my blog posts will probably be in all small letters and in animated pastel colors.
Hi, my boss is a PI for a huge project. He receives several emails a minute, mostly cc's. If I can't get hold of him by phone or in person, I know there is little chance of him reading an email not marked "important".
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