In the days of snail mail, a letter was carefully composed, typed or hand written out. You then put it in an envelope, stamped it and walked over to the mailbox. In that time, you can ruminate about what you are about to send.

Second thoughts will turn you around back home and the letter thrown in the trash. Today an average of 3 billion emails a day are sent at broadband speed. Once you hit Send, there are no “take backs”. In a panic you might think “I can get their secretary to delete it for me” but that takes a quick maneuver on your part and a close trusting friendship with the secretary. That scenario slips away when you realize you have neither.

So you are lost. It’s gone. And the recipient will see it and all hell will break loose. You can send a follow-up email that apologizes profusely and explaining that you are having a hard day and took your kid’s medication by mistake. What ends up happening is you will be hauled up onto the carpet and you will have to eat most of it.

It’s Out There Somewhere Waiting

A letter can be burnt, shredded, tossed, but your email lives on, stored around the world. One example is the famous Sherron Watkins email to Kenneth Lay (then chairman of Enron) about her concerns within Enron and it’s accounting practices. The email made an appearance five months later in front of the U.S. Congress and Senate. What Enron couldn’t do was shred email.

The Threader

Threaders are lazy emailers. They will use an open email and just add your name and hit reply. The subject never matches the content and attached to that email is a minimum of 6 different threads. They’re emails are like sitting with an aged Aunt who recounts her days as a WAC while all you need to know is where the toilet paper is kept. I have spent hours shifting through one Threader’s chain of emails titled, “Lunch at Del Taco’s”, looking for the phone number for a client.

Reply All

Another mistake Threaders make is forwarding disparaging email with comments about your work to everyone. They forget that it was attached to their breezy “let’s step back and look at this with fresh eyes” email. You read the email and find out that you are a “hack that couldn’t find their way out of an open paper bag”. You then get a follow up email with the subject header “Ooops,” apologizing by writing . “emails are so impersonal, lets have lunch at Del Taco’s!”.

You Might As Well Make Posters

The beauty of email is that they are easily forwarded to concerned parties. No need to get up and make copies and hand them out. You just hit Forward.

Unfortunately, this can also work against you if you are writing something someone finds too interesting to keep to themselves, even if you explicitly typed out, in bold uppercase “DELETE THIS IMMEDIATELY”. Not only will people who know you read it, complete strangers who find it funny will then forward it as well.

One other mistake is hitting Reply when you meant Forward. The latest Reply fiasco was Countrywide’s CEO Mozilo’s “I thought I hit Forward” with an email from a disgruntled borrower, whom he called “disgusting”. The recipient Daniel Bailey Jr. then correctly hit the Forward button to just about everyone he knew.

Flag

In this 21st century more of us work remotely and communicate through text, it’s also how we get to know each other through social networks (ie. Twitter, Brightkite, Friendfeed). So choose your words carefully because in this virtual world, they are what defines us.

(Image) (RSS)

If you enjoyed that why not find a job or read our guide to working in the 21st century. You can also join our Kiva team or hire me for your project.