Postcards from the Funny Farm

Have you ever heard the expression: “Keeping up with the Joneses?”  There is a drive in Americans it seems, and maybe all people, to perpetually showing ones stuff.  It isn’t enough for many for a job to be done well, people have to recognize it or it never happened.

It’s as if sometimes our lives are showrooms where we dust off the merchandise daily.  We want to impress people with who we are.  I got an email the other day from an ex-colleague and when I opened it I realized it wasn’t just to me.  There was nothing in the to: box which means it was a mass blind carbon copy.  These are like junk mail to me but I was curious how she was doing so I read it anyway.  It was a paragraph with an attachment showing what the people she works with now do and there were 2 links attached that were at the top of Google.  I wrote back a thank you and expected I’d hear something more but I didn’t.  I can’t judge their motives but to me it just all seemed to be so braggart.

What if we lived our lives with the focus on the project.  What if we talked about ourselves and our work less.  What if we let it be what it was and left the emails for questions about how friends are doing?

As for me, I’m closing the showroom in some aspects of my life.  Let’s face it, there is a place and a purpose for stuff like commercial real estate showrooms in the world. But as for this particular showroom, I want to listen and read more and proclaim what I’ve done less … much less.

While I already have most this info posted on my teaching blog, I know I have different readers here that can offer valuable input about their work email so here goes:

Did you know people at your work might be offended at you due to email? They may think you didn’t reply because you don’t care or imagine you are mad etc. They also might be angry at you because they never got your reply (which you sent!)

I have had some of these issues lately and below is my article about using “read receipt request” in an attempt to prevent them:

The other day a fiasco almost happened because someone didn’t get my email at work. I don’t recommend this is regular personal emails because it’s cumbersome, but from now on I will be sending out a “request read” receipt on all my work emails. If people don’t mark it as read, then I will assume they didn’t get it. If they do mark it read, then I can rest easy. You might want to try this and see how you like it.

Update: After trying this today with several contacts I did learn some practical knowledge. It is probably bad etiquette to request a read receipt on every email you send. Having the record in your sent box is enough sometimes to give me peace of mind. I think it’s best to have a signature ready that reads something like:

To be sure my message was received I have requested a “read receipt” on this message. If you do not receive a notification to check, I request that you reply with a minimum of the word “received” . Thank you. -Mr. Riley

That way if you are sending an email that needs verification that the receiver read it, you can just add the “signature” footer to the message. If your email client allows it, you can also select “read receipt request.” What I learned today was that this is not necessary for every email you send, unless you don’t mind appearing overly careful. Another problem with it is that you will have an inbox full of emails that read “received” all day long.
What do you think about using “request read receipts” at work?