Email Etiquette

The guide to writing emails to your boss/important people:

(1) Try to put everything he or she needs to know in the subject line. Odds are they have no intention to open the email anyways. If you put key words of phrases in the subject, they get your thesis without having to click "open" on their cellphones. (Make sure it is not a "wordy" subject or it will cut off if opened on a cellphone)  Let's be honest. Odds are he or she wont even read the subject - they might just disregard it - the subject should then be searchable so that a few weeks or months from now when he (we are just going to use the pronoun "he" from now on to cut down on unnecessary typing) asks you if you sent that email, you can say "oh yes, check the email sent on 10/4 titled *insert your title here*".

(2) Use bullet points. Or numbers. You odds are greatly increased of getting a read if you have bullet points. No "unnecessary" words in this either.  Just a quick, super short, to the point summary. (don't take this post to be the perfect example of course). Don't get me wrong, when I have been told to "write a detailed email describing the situation", I have written a detailed email that would make your eyes roll to the back of your head half way through reading it, That can't be good for anyone's yearly optometrist visit,

(3) Bold. If you are lucky enough for him to open the email, you want the bolded words to smack him in the face. He should be able to understand the entire email by simply skimming the bold words. That way, if he "skims your email" you are helping him to skim the part you really want for him to read.

(4) Don't use long words. Write as though you are writing to a small child (with all due respect). He isn't going to use a dictionary to look up presumptuous words. (such as presumptuous). You don't come off as "more intelligent" if you used your thesaurus to write a quick work email.

(5) If there is additional information, put it in the attachment. Then you can say "attached, for additional information, is the *insert name of document*" Highlight the document (you can do that in pdf or excel or word) with the important key figures mentioned in your email. IF for some unknown reason he wants to actually read your email to put him to sleep at night AND opens the attachment, you are good to go.

(6) Make sure your document is client ready. Okay, we are not perfect. Today, I forgot to spell check an excel document and there was a small, hidden, completely irrelevant misspelled word. After a couple years of constant spell check and getting irritated with others for not using the little "check mark" function on all microsoft product, I forgot. AND got called out in an email about it - making my boss look bad. Easy to do - sucks when you don't.

(7) Make sure all attachments are print ready, and the little box in the excel document is at A1. Don't make it any more confusing than necessary or he might close it with all of the confusion of starting out on cell F45. You might have one of those old-school bosses that print everything - welcome to 2012 bossman,

(8) The email should be "client ready". If you can adequately write a professional and quick email, your boss can simply forward on the message to the appropriate party, (also eliminating the need for him to read it all together, ideal)

(9) Never BCC your boss. He wont feel special and your odds of him reading it are slim to none, Plus, who BCCs anyways? You shady bastard.(That being said, I do appreciate being BCCed on the "I'm quitting the firm" emails. That way I don't have to scroll through all the people you've ever passed in the hall after your 2-5 years with the firm.)

(10) Don't over use the "!" Urgent. You are going to be the "boy who called wolf". What is REALLY IMPORTANT to you, might be not such a big deal compared to the rest of his day.
Don't use Urgent unless one of the following has occurred:

• Someone is bleeding (actually, then you should call the doctor, or give them a bandaid depending on how serious the cut)
• There is an extreme emergency (but maybe you should be calling him at that point?)
• Something requires immediate action (but then you could just write "Immediate Action Required" In the subject line so he knows there is an action item associated with the whole mess)

Good Luck and Happy Writing.