Features 23
The views and wording included in this
student submission are those of the
student and is not an official statement of
the University of Southern Queensland.
1. The inappropriate salutation-ers
Sup. Hey you. Yo! Hi fellas. Mornin’ all! These
guys just never get it right. Hi *name*, or a simple
‘Hello’ is as casual as it should get in the world of
workplace email. The only thing worse? No greeting
at all!
2. The EXCLAIMERS!!
As huge fans of bold text, all caps and exclamation
points, it’s always hard to tell if these people are
surprised, angry or just endlessly excited. Whatever
the reason, tone IT down!
3. The emoji lovers ;)
Regardless of the nature of the message, these
bubbly people love nothing more than to punctuate
their emails with faces made out of keyboard
characters. I’m not trying to be the Grinch of email
inboxes, but seriously, if you’re old enough to be in
a professional workplace I think you’re old enough
to stop showing your emotions via emoticons. If you
really can’t resist, here’s the golden rule of polite
emoji use in the workplace: It’s only appropriate to
use emoticons if the recipient of your email uses
them first.
4. The reply all-ers
These generous folk share their thoughts, thankyous, jokes and often really, really irrelevant
information with several people at once via ‘Reply
All’. Fun fact for the day, it’s very rare that ‘all’
actually care or needed to know that communal
piece of information you just shot off to about 20
people at once. Just stop. Please!
5. The walls of silence
Last, but not least, these people are the actual
worst! You shoot off a polite, well-worded
and comprehensive email (that undoubtedly
warrants a response), only to receive a stone
cold wall of silence in return. No response, no
acknowledgement. Your email might as well have
been sent to the stone-age. All it takes to keep
annoyance at bay is a few polite words so at least I
know you’ve received my message!
Email is undeniably here to stay and while there’s not a lot you can
do about other people’s digital manners, there’s a lot you can do to
improve your own! If you’re new to a professional workplace, these are
the 5 types of email users you don’t want to become. For other tips
on how not to be a jerk at work, check out this awesome resourse on
USQ’s Social Hub.