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Five email tics I'd love for you to lose

Merlin Mann | Nov 7 2005

For the love of God, people; can we get the word out on these? Format courtesy of my other site.

  1. The liberal use of the "VERY HIGH PRIORITY!!!" flag
  2. The 18-line sig about all the Bad Things that will happen to me if I ever reveal the contents of your privileged, confidential (and unencrypted) message
  3. The unrequested press release (and the serial ignoring of the "Unsubscribe" I sent you for the previous seven press releases)
  4. The graphical background, font and table tags, and remaining 14k of HTML cruft associated with every. single. message. you've ever sent
  5. The including of my -- plus 98 other strangers' -- personal email addresses in the "To:" line of your friendly reminder about Tyler's birthday party

Friend: I love you, but you must evolve.

95 Comments
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TOPICS: Classics, Email, Personal Productivity, Work
Jeroen Sangers's picture

Whenever I receive a message...

Submitted by Jeroen Sangers (not verified) on November 7, 2005 - 8:37am.

Whenever I receive a message with that horrible semi-lawyer speak at the end, I use the following signature in my reply:

DISCLAIMER:

By sending an email to ANY of my addresses you are agreeing that:

  1. I am by definition, "the intended recipient";
  2. All information in the email is mine to do with as I see fit and make such financial profit, political mileage, or good joke as it lends itself to. In particular, I may quote it on my weblog;
  3. I may take the contents as representing the views of your company;
  4. This overrides any disclaimer or statement of confidentiality that may be included on your message.
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