(un)professional e-mail skills -- was Re: JOB: Linux System Administrator

[Michael Torrie]

On 09/16/2010 09:40 PM, Ryan Byrd wrote:
> Nobody except uber-nerds/Stuart cares at all about top/bottom/trimming
> posts. At all. The same people that complain about this non-issue also
> complain about HTML email and Flash and PHP.

No one but tree hugger freaks cares about litter either.  I digress.
Your e-mails have entertained me on many occasions.  Thank you!

As far as professional correspondence goes, almost all e-mail I receive
from so-called professionals (management-types) at BYU, mainly OIT
middle managers, is quite unprofessional.  It's really sad, actually.
Some people actually think it's business-like and professional to sign
their emails with FirstnameLastname where one of the names is a
different color.  But that's not the worst of it.  Almost without
exception when someone in the management hierarchy replies to my email
with top-posting it signifies that he or she did not read anything I
wrote and is just replying to what he or she thought I said.  It's very
frustrating because it represents simple laziness on the other person's
part.  If he's too lazy to read what I actually wrote, what else is he
lazy in?  Are my ideas even mattering to him and my company?  I bet that
many of you can say similar things about so-called professional e-mails
at your companies too.

I think if people made a habit of posting in-context, it would force
them to actually read what they were replying to.  I know that on
countless occasions, as I've begun to insert my reply into the quoted
text of an e-mail I've realized that I completely misread what the
person was saying.  Not top-posting has saved me from major
embarrassment on a number of occasions.  Just something to think about.