Is it wrong that I love to mess with the orker who requests a "Read Receipt" on every single e-mail she sends, even if it's just about what time people want to take their lunch breaks?
How do I mess with her, you ask? When I get the little pop-up telling me that the sender has asked for a receipt, I click "NO" to ensure that she gets no such receipt. That's how.
Honestly, consider this a public service announcement for cubicle dwellers and executives alike: Do not set the automatic "Request a Receipt When E-Mail is Read" thingamaboober on your e-mail account. Feel free to request a receipt for certain individual messages, sure, including those sent to a large group. That's great for scheduling meetings and for various times when it's legitimately important to be sure that someone received your message. But really, do you actually need to know whether I read your "Nope, I haven't seen it" response to the boss's question about some random file, when the rest of the crew has also responded? If you do, you're a frakking moron. I'm gonna read the last message in the thread and that's it, and I really don't want to deal with your stupid receipt request when I go to delete the rest of the useless crap in my trash.
Truth is, you're just lazy and you don't trust yourself to remember the receipt request when it might actually be relevant, so you punish the rest of us instead.
"You" here being the orker, you unnerstand. I don't know about you, of course (and when it comes right down to it, I don't really care).
This has been a public service announcement. If you see something, say something. Or something.
Posted by cynical at August 20, 2007 04:29 PMI always say no to that same request. It seems a self-important sort of verification.
Please acknowledge receipt of this comment.
Posted by: Karan on August 20, 2007 08:31 PMIf you're in outlook, I believe you can set your preferences to always decline a read receipt. Not that that's much help if you actually do want to respond to SOME of them.
We have Lotus Notes here -- you can request a read receipt and the receiver has noooo control over whether or not to accept it. Then again, you just see the note briefly in the bottom toolbar, it's not a pop-up or anything. But still, I do sometimes wonder WHY some people need to know that I've read (or not read) their email asking me inane questions of no importance whatsoever. I personally only use it for a) urgent items and b) on individuals who routinely claim the 'email? what email? I didn't get an email from you' defense when asked why they didn't follow up on something.
Posted by: Jen on August 21, 2007 08:07 AMI have received your comments.
Posted by: cynical on August 21, 2007 10:50 AMWhat used to really irritate me was when people would 'read receipt' PERSONAL emails to me. Because, apparently, it is absolutely essential that someone know whether I I have read their 'Pass this along to 10 people in the next 10 minutes!' type emails. Sheesh.
Posted by: Jen on August 21, 2007 02:23 PMI've found that I save a lot of that hassle by simply never opening my e-mail client. My productivity hasn't really suffered, either.
Can't be any worse than Lotus Notes.
Posted by: TJ on August 21, 2007 02:53 PMGawd. I have *students* who do that.
Why do they need to know if I've read their email? They *know* I check email all the damn time because they get responses (usually) within minutes.
Sigh.
Posted by: shelley (not-so-cynical) on August 21, 2007 08:16 PMI'm really leaning towards TJ's idea of never opening my email client.
Posted by: faux pas on August 23, 2007 06:31 PMEqually annoying are those “orkers” who flag every email with the red exclamation mark of importance. Those get expedited to my trash folder.
Posted by: Chris on August 23, 2007 09:28 PMEqually annoying are those “orkers” who flag every email with the red exclamation mark of importance. Those get expedited to my trash folder.
Posted by: Chris on August 23, 2007 09:29 PM...and those "orkers" who hit "post" twice when submitting a comment on a blog. God I hate that.
Posted by: Chris on August 23, 2007 09:31 PMOh, seriously, Chris, I can absolutely relate to that. Like *everything* (or, really, anything) these people have to say even warrants an e-mail, let alone an "important" one.
Posted by: Tony on August 24, 2007 10:40 PMI love this post! I have a couple of clients who do that all day long.
Annoying is just a polite way of saying what I really think.
I will need a read receipt for this comment.
Posted by: aithne on August 25, 2007 05:13 PMShould I interpret the fact I've received only a few requests for read receipts as people really don't care if I read their emails??
Posted by: Sally on August 30, 2007 12:28 AM