It was a great, nasty, email. I had written everything I wanted to say to the recipient and then some, just in case he didn’t get the point the first 12 times I made it. I finally had enough of being polite and trying to be the “bigger man”, so the gloves were coming off. It was the kind of email I always wanted to send to some board member when I was in the ministry, but due to my pastoral position, I could never do it. So there it was, the perfect retaliation email: a masterpiece of both logic, passion and a big opened can of whoop, well, you know. But I never sent it. In retrospect, I’m glad that email didn’t go out. It would have been disastrous. I have a few rules about emotionally charged emails. 1.  Write the email while you’re in the “moment.” Writing has…

I hate email. It’s dying, but not fast enough for me. And since we still need to use it to communicate, I would like to offer some email etiquette guidelines that would make the use of such an antiquated communication tool more, well, bearable. Keep it short. Please no emails longer than three short paragraphs. Unless we are paid by the word or by the hour (attorneys!), we don’t have the attention span to read it. I usually scan it and close the email to read later. However, I seldom go back to it. Maybe never. Ok, never. Use the subject line properly. Create a subject line that makes sense and is relevant to the content of the email. In one day I received five emails from the same person with no subject lines. When that happens, I have not idea how to organize incoming emails and a chances are…

The email bully is my nemesis. Even though you might not have heard this term before, I’m sure you have run into her before.  This is different than the hard-to-deal-with-person who is always difficult or unpleasant. Email bullies are often engaging and charming in person and over the phone; however, they use terse language and are quite demanding through their email communication. When I see a case of EB come across my screen, my first instinct is to give the person the benefit of a doubt since it’s virtually impossible to attribute “tone” to a short email message. But then there’s the inevitable second and third emails. Then the case is confirmed: email bullying. Here are the symptoms: Every situation is an out-of-control crisis. Everyone gets copied on the email. Rampant usage of ALL CAPS. Long and extremely verbose language. It’s interesting that the same person who comes across so…