Everybody has their pet peeves. For some people, it’s the sound of a pencil tapping repeatedly on the table. For others, it’s the constant sniffling of a nose. Whatever the peeve, it is unbelievably annoying to us. One of my biggest pet peeves happens to be unnecessarily rude email. I just cannot stand it. I’m not talking about somebody sending you an email outright insulting you, I’m talking about those one line emails with no greeting or salutation or any personal touches at all.

For example, say you send an email to the organizer of an event with a question. You may not even know them, however you have a question and they’re you’re only point of contact. Your email could go something like this:

Hi John,

I was wondering if we had a charge code for the networking event tomorrow?

Thanks,
Kevin

Simple and polite, it should be an easy question to answer. However, you get this response:

no

This is what I’m talking about. How hard is it to add the following:

Hi Kevin,

We don’t have a charge code for the event, please use your normal one.

Thanks,
John

That might take what, five extra seconds? There’s just no excuse for it. This is especially true when you don’t know the person. When I’m emailing a close co-worker of mine, I don’t mind a short response. However, if it’s somebody I don’t know, it strikes me as incredibly rude.

What do you think? Have you had this happen to you before? Maybe it’s just me, but I always tell new employees to be polite in this fashion when sending their email. Let me know what you think.