Work related gripe about email etiquette... If you copy someone on an email exchange, especially the manager of my manager's manager, don't be a dick and use blind carbon copy.

Uhm... I'm confused. "Blind copy" and "Bcc" are different ways of saying the same thing.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
Uhm... I'm confused. "Blind copy" and "Bcc" are different ways of saying the same thing.

As you should be . Original post edited to say "if you copy someone", instead of "if you blind copy someone".

Ah. Now it makes sense . I guess it depends on the reason for the Bcc. There were times I Bcc'd people, not to hide it from the individual(s) in To: or Cc:, but to keep any resulting "noise" out of the Bcc'd individual's inbox. They were Bcc'd, in such cases, only because I felt they needed to see my initial email, but not reams of resulting traffic.

A perfect example was our President and CEO. He explicitly requested to be removed from all internal email lists, but there were times I sent email to a list I felt important he be aware of, so I'd Bcc him on such occasions.

There were other occasions I used it that were less... benign. I imagine it is those types of communications to which you refer. Thing is: The designers of email put Bcc in there for a reason. If they hadn't, people would simply send copies under separate cover. *shrug*

What's funny is you can tell by the wording that there's someone on BCC. You think to yourself, would they be talking like this if there were nobody else?

Speaking of email etiquette, group email and one says they did something that everyone on the group should apparently be informed. The first head shake is when someone replies to all and says, "thank you!" The second head shake is when the person being thanked replies to all and says, "you're welcome."

Another head shake is when someone mistakenly emails the whole company. And someone replies to all and asks to be taken off the list. And a second one chimes in asking the same. And a third. And a fourth.

Not within a company (I don't do that any more), but I use bcc when mailing the same thing to several people who don't necessarily know each other.

It might reduce confusion, and maybe Suzy's email address is none of Fred's business.

Example: Our Little Airport is not federal, state, county, or city. It is owned by the users. First month of each calendar quarter, the Owners Association sponsors an Open House with lunch (pancake breakfast for the July event). I forward the invitation / announcement to several people, but I do not want to make their email addresses "public," so I use bcc.

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The next one is January 18, 2019, which is one week from today.

If any of y'all in the Orlando area would like to drop by to say "hi" to V-Tail, and grab a burger or hot dog, potato salad, all the usual stuff, send a message to the email address in my profile and I'll reply with the details.

Whoever said that there's no free lunch has not been to an Open House at Our Little Airport.

If any of the aviators want to fly in for lunch, our fuel is very cheap (comparatively), and I can either make room for your bird in my hangar, or point you at outdoor parking.

I used bcc a lot at the DC I managed. I had a comanager that used to instigate fights all the time. It was a real pain in the ass. When it would start via email, I would bcc our VP of operations so when the other manager would get things totally sideways and out if control, our boss already had a heads up as to what was going down.

By my ultra polite and professional replies, he should have knows I was bcc the VP.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Not within a company (I don't do that any more), but I use bcc when mailing the same thing to several people who don't necessarily know each other.

With the added bonus of eliminating the use of the God forsaken "reply all" button. That fucking thing is a scourge.

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Originally posted by DaBigBR:
With the added bonus of eliminating the use of the God forsaken "reply all" button. That fucking thing is a scourge.

When I was still working, it was in a Windows shop, and we used images to set up user workstations. I made the master image, going through a lot of UI settings and making them (what I thought) make more sense. One little bit of chicanery I employed was to remove the "Reply to All" icon from the Outlook toolbar. The option was still available via the main menu, but that really cut down on the senseless use of RTA.

BCC and Reply All, both tools with value when used appropriately. Sadly BCC is typically used by trouble makers (V-Tail stated the only valid use case for bbc). All to often Reply All is the button of the lazy and clueless.

quote:

Originally posted by DaBigBR:
With the added bonus of eliminating the use of the God forsaken "reply all" button. That fucking thing is a scourge.

BCC can be a similar scourge. We have a certain support personnel who feels the need to BCC damn near everyone on almost every email they send, reportedly "just in case they forgot to include someone who needed to know that too".

It has had the opposite effect, where everyone has just learned to ignore just about every email from that person, since 99% of the emails don't have anything to do with them, and so they end up missing out on occasional stuff that they do need to know.

I regularly get emails where a key person is not on the recipient list.

Typically, these messages involve a problem with one of the web applications we are tasked with maintaining.

I prefix my reply with "Adding xxx to recipient list because they need to be included."

BCC is rarely used.

I just cc them so the person fucking it up knows that I have involved their superiors, because they are fucking it up.

Blind carbon copy always struck me as a bit douchy.

“Reply All” can go fuck itself along with all the ass kissing clowns who want 100 other people to know that they’re wishing Karen a happy birthday.

quote:

Originally posted by SPWAMike0317:
Sadly BCC is typically used by trouble makers (V-Tail stated the only valid use case for bbc).

No, it's not, and no, he didn't.

quote:

Originally posted by SPWAMike0317:
All to often Reply All is the button of the lazy and clueless.

Exacerbated by the fact that most email client applications RTA by default. "Reply" (to sender only), rather than RTA, should be the default.

I've seen multiple instances where a higher level manager that got blind copied "replied all" and exposed themselves.

I then provided "feedback" to the original sender, that their habit of blind copying people means I cannot trust that any email communication from them that appears to be sent only to me is actually private. Really, this is an underhanded passive aggressive behavior and as far as I am concerned, the BCC function should be removed. If you want to copy someone, have the balls to do it. If you don't, you can always forward it after the fact.

The worst offender was my boss's new boss (Exec Director), who criticized both me and my boss for not irrationally overreacting like she did to what was really a non-issue and a smokescreen/diversion concocted by another high level manager to shift blame from his function to ours. And she blind copied the same person, who then exposed himself by replying all.

I told my boss (Director) that his boss is way out of line and I WILL NOT tolerate being unjustly excoriated by emails that are blind copied to god knows who, and can only be construed as "public". That just isn't cool, even if the criticism was justified.

I’ve used both bcc and cc with the owner/doc at our clinic. Usually bcc when the receiver has no business knowing who else is involved and they don’t want their personal email out there (purchasing, etc), but the owner/doc knows what I’m up to and why.
I cc when I’m p.o. as to someone’s internal fuckup, and let them in on the fact that we ALL know now.

Rule #1 - There's no emotion inflected in an email; if the email can be read/interpreted in the wrong way, it will be.

Rule #2 - If you are BCC'ed in an email, do not hit "Reply to All."

Rule #3 - DO NOT BCC anyone. Resend it to the intended BCC recipient in a separate email (refer to Rule #2 for reason).