Email Hemail Shemail Things I Hate

When email was brand new technology, reasonable people wrote articles about net etiquette to get newbies on the same page with them when it came to "best practices" for writing and using email. Today I was thinking about how people still write perfectly impossible email and don't use it the right way, even now that it's so common. I have a few pet peeves about email and I wish everyone shared them, so we could all work on stamping them out.

1. Please don't ask me 5 questions in one email, please send me 5 emails with one question in each. Is that nutty? You'll have a much better chance that I might answer 4 right away and eventually answer the 5th which might require some thought or research. If you glob a million things into one email and one is in need of reflection -- I don't answer the message, thereby not answering ANY of the 5 points.

2. Please don't assume I remember the name of your husband (Tom), your son (Tommy), your dog (Tomahawk), your goldfish (Tom-Tom), and feel free to say "My son Tommy killed his goldfish Tom-Tom yesterday!" instead of "Tommy killed Tom-Tom yesterday!" and I have to ask "YOUR SON KILLED HIS DAD?"

3. Please don't assume I remember who the hell you are or where the hell we met -- or that I'll mind if you decide to describe it in detail -- PLEASE DO, especially if you have a common name. I hate it when I get an email that says, "Hi, it's me Dave, I love what you said about Alpha Males." Dave who? And I said something where? In my blog, in person, at a reading, in a magazine??? And what did I say? Try this instead, "Hi, I'm Dave, Stephanie's friend -- remember we met briefly at that bar in Cambridge called NOIR, during the blizzard on Valentine's Day weekend. I loved it when you told Stephanie she needed to let an Alpha Male kiss her any way and any WHERE he wanted."

4. And my most peeving pet peeve of all email traditions. The frigging email arrives from Mr. and Mrs. Jones -- this is due to free email accounts married people get with cable modem and DSL packages -- and I don't know if the email is from MR OR MRS JONES?!?! What, email is just so hard to get, you can't afford to have YOUR OWN EMAIL? I read two things into this -- both of which I can tell you are loathsome to consider and makes me want to dump both people as potential friends. By sharing conjugal email are you telling me "We are so bonded to one another and so psychologically healthy we speak with one voice and keep no secrets?!" Yeah, right, sure. This attitude I call Marital Macho -- "We're so married and you're so not!" Or worse, "We're so emeshed I can't imagine doing anything without my spouse glued to my hip." Get your own email, lovebirds -- if you ever want me to answer it. It's like sharing one another's panties ... pretty spooky shit ... but then again, maybe you do that in your marriage? Please don't even tell me, MR. AND MRS. JONES, I don't want to know the details!

5. Then there's my favorite "Mr. Memorandum" whose emails don't even get started without 6 paragraphs for setting the scene. Add about 17 more paragraphs to air his opinion and closing arguements add the requisite 5 more paragraphs. An email is SHORT, SWEET and TO THE POINT. And life, like email, is short too -- anyone mention that to you ever?

6. And God save us from the long-winded emailer who is unfamiliar with THE CARRIAGE RETURN. Yes, you've all seen these emails -- they are one long run-on gob of text. Never a break, never a paragraph, just on and on and on for the whole page. Try a little white space ... PLEASE?!

7. And then there are those clever email addresses like DADDYSDARLING@aol.com or LEADERSHIPMAN@yahoo.com or D4T4CODERGIRL@verizon.com and they don't include the person's real name and you end up having to reply, "Hi, Leadershipman" (read: moron) instead of knowing what the person's actual name is.

Okay, is it just me, or do you run into these things and want to vomit too?