What not to say in Office Email
A good rule of thumb is to never write anything in an e-mail that you wouldn’t mind everyone reading. Just because you hit delete, that doesn’t mean that it is gone. In a corporate office, e-mail is forever, somewhere on a backup server, somewhere in somebody’s inbox, somewhere out there waiting to haunt you and your spastic moment of indiscretion or your fit of hyper inflated anger. Even if your short-term written outburst has blown over for the moment, it can and will be used against you in the future and can be used to establish a pattern of repeated offenses if it happens more than once.
Office e-mail backup systems can be scanned in bulk for keywords or phrases. Using the wrong language, even if it is not profane, may land you on a list with other “offenders” or persons of interest. What should be obvious about improper subject matter or indecent language is sometimes not. The reasons that office codes of conduct and sections in the employee handbook on appropriateness in the workplace exist is because at some point, someone that acted inappropriately fired back with the excuse that they were never told that their specific action or actions were inappropriate. As such, these office guidelines must cover all bases and that sometimes means that they can read like they were written for a six-year old.
Another good piece of advice for those who fall into this category would be: Don’t ever write anything in an office e-mail that you wouldn’t show to your child, your parents, your grandparents, or someone that you have respect for. A well crafted e-mail can make a point in a professional manner even if the situation being addressed seems anything but professional. The advantages to handling yourself in a professional manner are that you will be taken more seriously and you can expect a professional response as opposed to being dismissed as an ignorant troublemaker.
At the same time, the long-lasting preservation of e-mail can be used to your advantage. Have you ever had a boss that never responds to an e-mail that you send, but always prefers to answer you verbally? Why do you think that is? It is because they know that e-mail in a corporate setting is forever. In this way, you can use it to your advantage by specifically requesting a reply to your e-mail. Then, you have a copy of their response in writing indicating that you brought a situation to their attention or that they answered you in a certain way.
